


Hopeful Heart

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Additional Tags May Be Added, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Eventual Smut, M/M, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:22:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 48,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(subtitled Serious Porn)<br/>Inspired by a roleplay between Blake and Nix.  Updates <strike>on mondays</strike> every other Monday, because now that school has started up again, Nix has a life.</p><p>Jake English and Dirk Strider, best friends for years, finally get to meet through a transportation device they managed to create, sending Dirk flying back through time into the jungle of Jake’s island.  The journey the two undergo is one of self-growth and discovery as they take on our modern day world together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You stand in your room.

The sun beats down mercilessly on the interminable ocean that surrounds you, but you're oblivious to it, oblivious to the hoarse cries of the emaciated gulls that stir the air around your windows, oblivious even to the mumbled remarks of Cal that you're pretty sure he doesn't want you to hear anyway, your usually keen senses narrowed to the object in your hands.

It's the size of a frisbee, and almost shaped like one, but far heavier.  The amount of time and effort it took to construct it is beyond anything you'd ever attempted, and sneaking it all under the Condesce's radar beyond anything you'd believed possible, but here you stand, and here it is.  Despite countless test runs before you'd sendificated the partner device to your friend, you still aren't completely sold that it will work as projected.  Bending space-time is quite a bit different when the receptor end is a four-meter jump away on your roof than when it's located across a globe and four hundred years in the past.

You'd based the device on the sendificator itself, had dissected the thing in order to better understand its mechanisms and even considered cannibalizing parts of it into this device during particularly frustrating road bumps in construction, but your friend had helped you through them and had built and sent parts as required, often under your guidance.  Figuring out how to bend its transportation abilities around an object that did not fit on its surface had been mind-boggling, but after studying your friend's grandmother's dedicated and extensive notes on particle physics and thanking every deity you could think of for her acute understanding of the subject, the pair of you managed to create an artifact that would do as you required: Not a sendificator, but a transportalizer — a hand-held one.  Its partner is now, according to his pesterchum testimony at least, in the custody of Jake English.

You glance up at Cal, acknowledging his presence but not his dubious mutterings, hoping this isn't the last time you see him, swearing by your friend's confidence that you're not wrong, fearing in some ever-present gnawing part of your mind that you are.

You activate the device.

 

==>

 

You take a deep breath and look skyward.  It’s past noon, and the sun has long ago started its descent towards the horizon.  The day is nice, with a light breeze and decent temperatures.  The trees are rustling in a peaceful manner, and the beasts that wander the jungle island you live on are quiet for the day.

On all accounts, you should be happy. It’s the first peaceful day you’ve had in a while.  Yet you were expecting someone today.  The first time you would have had a guest in forever.  It’s extremely rare that you have anyone to talk to in person, and you were truly looking forward to it.  You’d cleaned up the house (relatively) in preparation for his arrival.  And it doesn’t help that this guest happens to be your best bro, Dirk Strider.

You’ve been sitting on your front porch for maybe an hour and a half, on the lookout for him, but there’s no sign.  Your trusty skulltop sits beside you, but it has remained curiously silent.  There hasn’t been a single message for you to answer.  This worries you.

You suppose you should have probably given him a ring with your pesterchum account, asking him why he’s so late, but you don’t want to bother the poor fellow.  After all, he went to a lot of trouble to make the transport device.  You helped, of course, but it was only through his instructions that you were able to build the parts you sent, and you were flabbergasted by the sight of the completed piece when he sendificated you the second half of the device.  You can’t even be sure it works anymore, come to think it, because neither of you has had the gumption to beta test it since he sent it to you.  You wonder if perhaps the device malfunctioned, and Dirk is stranded somewhere in a time and place in between here and there.  A shudder wracks your body at the mere thought, and you grab your skulltop finally and pop it on your head.  You’re about to message him, but there’s a loud bang in the distance and you nearly jump out of your pants.

In a flash, you’ve ripped the skulltop off and are tearing through the jungle brush in the direction of the noise, where you know you’ve left your half of the transportalizer.  The closer you get, the more you calm down.  There’s a loud string of curses in a familiar voice, and the rustling of leaves.  A smile breaks across your face and you slow to a jog before finally stopping.

“Hello there, Strider,” you say, still grinning.

Dirk looks up at you, and his lips twitch into an almost smile before returning to the cool, flat line that they always are.  “Hey, man,” he says, “What’s going on?”

The question has to be ironic, because what’s going on is he’s _here,_ in front of you, something you never expected to happen and, from his dubious remarks during your chats over transporter construction, you assume he never really did either.  For a moment, all you can do is stare wordlessly.  You look him up and down, noting that he’s uninjured.  He’s got his katana in its sheath linked to his belt, and shoes made for walking.  Perfect.  It’s a good time for a walk in the jungle, you suddenly decide.  “Nothing too rousing at the moment,” you respond cheekily.  “I was actually just about to go on an adventure.  Care to join?”

He gives a noncommittal shrug.  “Sure, why not?”  And after a moment, “Where are we headed?”

You shrug, too.  “Oh, I don’t know.  Wherever the wind takes us, I s’pose.”

Your turn and set off, listening for his footsteps behind.  In a few moments, there’s the soft crunch of his feet on leaves, and he’s following you.

“Baller,” he says.

It’s such a Strider-like word, so out of context in this place, that it wrinkles your nose.  “Baller?”

“Living on the edge.  I can get behind that.”

“It’s a superb way to live!” you immediately agree, and turn back with a smile.  He’s looking at you from behind his pointed shades, and you can just barely pick out the orange of his eyes.  You really wish that he’d take off his glasses, just so you could truly see his eyes, but you doubt that’ll ever happen.  Not anytime soon, in any case.

But being face-to-face with him is one step closer to seeing those eyes, you realize.  And then it hits you, really hits you, that he’s within arm’s reach and you have no idea how to react.  Conflabbit, why is interaction so much harder face-to-face than it is over pesterchum?  “So, how’ve you been?” you say, stepping over a log.

“Not awful,” he responds.  “Just keeping busy, I guess.”

“Oh really? What with?”

He pauses and steps over the same log.  “Practicing blades, tweaking AR’s programming…  Not really much to report on when you live in the middle of the ocean.”

You give a half-hearted shrug and a sheepish grin before moving forward.

“And you?”

“Hmm?”  You turn back.  “Oh, well the usual.  Exploring, going to ruins, and watching Tomb Raider every once in a while.”  A pause, and you smile, your thoughts drifting towards the adventures of Lara Croft.  “Cripes, I love that movie…”

“Yeah…” he says, and once more his lips are moving in the direction of a smile.  “You would.  Kind of adorable, really.”

In horror, you feel your cheeks redden.  “Am not!” you respond indignantly, clenching your fists.

“I meant the movie,” he says, a single brow lifted, “but okay.  You’re adorable, too.”

There’s a rush of relief, and you say, “Oh good,” but then there’s the horrifying realization that he still thinks you’re adorable.  “Wait no! I’m trying to be a rugged adventurer, Strider, not an adorable child!”

He shrugs, and that hint of a smile is gone again.  “You can be an adorable, rugged adventurer then.  That’s within the realm of your capabilities, I’m sure.”

You shake your head, exasperated.  “I don’t think so!  Hell’s bells, Dirk.  Don’t you know anything about adventuring?”

There’s a hint of humor in his tone now.  “Admittedly, that is not my area of expertise.”

You nod, and say in a sophisticated tone, “Precisely.  Therefore one can simply not be adorable and rugged all at once.”

“I wouldn’t rule out the possibility, but I’ll trust your judgment.”  He flicks at a fly that’s been buzzing around him, his lips turning downward into a grimace. “You’re the boss.”

Together, you keep moving through the jungle, and you find (with great relief) that the beasts have decided to leave you well enough alone today.  Along the wandering path you’ve chosen for the day, an easy conversation gets started.  He asks about your expeditions and keeps calling you Lara Croft, but it’s nice, and you find yourself relaxing.  You’d been nervous to finally meet Strider in person.  After all, he was an intimidating sort of guy from behind those glasses, and hard to impress.  Yet he always seemed genuinely interested in what you had to say, and despite the name-calling, he still does now.

You then decide that that’s enough about yourself and adventuring, though.  You want to hear the deep cadence of his voice and if you’re lucky, his laugh.  You ask him about what it’s like for him at home, in the distant future.

“I do go on little escapades myself, you know,” he says, slicing through some brush with his katana, “Checking out underwater ruins and stuff.”

Your heart nearly skips a beat.   _“Underwater ruins?!”_ you exclaim, “No way! That sounds fantastic!  Would you take me sometime?”

He shrugs again, the subject seeming to disinterest him.  “Sure, if you want. I mostly go because there are loads of fish there, but I guess it’d be a lot of fun for you.”

You grin widely despite his detachment towards the subject.  “Holy fucking _mackerel!”_ you say, “Dirk, why haven’t you told me of this before?”

“Just never came up, I guess.”  He slices through a vine that had been obstructing his view.  He looks down the ancient path, his hand gripping tight at the katana.  “So what do you figure is down there?”

A frown drags your lips downward.  “I’m not really sure.”  Despite all your expert exploring of the island, there remains a few small nooks and crannies that have been left untouched.  “I hope it isn’t a beast of some kind.”

“That would suck,” he says, “Pretty sure we could handle it though.”  He glances downward at your pistols.

You nod.  “Yes!  Between your steel and my bullets we could kick some arse!”

A near smile again.  “The biggest and most indubitably bad of arse.”

“You know it!”  You give him your classic double-pistols-and-a-wink and laugh.  His composure breaks and he’s smiling, too, even giving a light chuckle and punching your shoulder.  You punch back lightly, feeling delighted at seeing him laugh.

He cries out in a farce of pain and grips his upper arm where your knuckles touched him.  “Oh, my delicate flower petal flesh!  Be careful Mr. Rugged Adventurer,” he says sarcastically, still smiling.

A snicker escapes you.  “Strider, you are anything but delicate.”

A flash of a white smile again.  “Thank you for noticing.”

And you do notice.  It’s hard for you to ignore the light tanning of his shoulders and the hardened biceps.  You almost continue to stare, but you quickly shake yourself out of it.  Dirk seems a bit distracted, too, but you can’t really be sure.  It’s hard to be sure about anything with him.  The guy always hid behind his glasses and sarcasm.  Not to mention he was smarter than anyone you’d ever met, including your grandmother.

You clear your throat.  “Perhaps we’ll find ruins if we continue!”

He steps ahead of you and starts to lead the way.  “Maybe.”

“Well you know it’s pretty great looking through them!  You can find all sorts of marvelous artifacts.”  You follow behind, stepping lightly.

A snort escapes from him.  “Oh yeah, totally.  Although the ruins of Houston just contain old Tex-Mex deep fryers and stuff.”

You have to smirk at that.  “That doesn’t sound too fun.  Don’t they have anything of interest there?  Surely they have ancient remains of cowboys or some nonesuch like that.”

There’s a short laugh from him.  “Ha, I’d hardly think decomposed bodies would make ideal loot, buddy.”

“Well, it’s always interesting to see them,” you reply, “You know I do love my skulls.”

“Oh yeah,” he says, “I guess it’s just kind of weird considering they’re so… relatively recent.”

A pang hits you.  Dirk’s been alone since the day he was born.  You’re his first human contact.  The realization is so sudden and violent that you trip over yourself.  Your heart pounds in your ears, and immediately you throw your hands out to catch yourself.  But somebody’s already there.  Dirk’s caught you.

You look up and there’s his cool face staring down at you.  You’re against his chest, and faintly, you can hear his heart thumping beneath his muscles.  His voice vibrates against your cheek as he says, “All right there, dude?”

It takes a second before you realize he’s talking to you.  You don’t move though.  “Yes.  Quite all right.”  Your eyes search the reflective surfaces of those glasses, wondering what he’s thinking.  You see nothing but your own reflection back at you.

You finally draw away and brush yourself off.  “Thanks for the catch, chap.”

“No problem, dude,” he responds, and turns away, his back somewhat stiff, continuing forward.  A blush creeps up your face, and you follow along.

“So, Strider, what do you feel like for lunch?” you say after a few minutes’ trek.

“Well,” he says, pausing and turning around, “my diet consists mostly of fish and orange soda.  Something other than that would be fuckin’ great.”

“Well then, are you a fan of tacos?”

“Wouldn’t know.”  He looks away and continues forward, his face impassive as ever.  “Never happened upon cow meat before, so I can’t really do much in the way of tacos.”

You’re astounded.  “You’re bluffing.  You’ve never had tacos?”

“Never.”

“Dirk Strider!”

He stops, his arm falling still, and looks back.  “Jake English.”

“You have got to be pulling my leg!”

“I wish I were,” he says very seriously.  “That situation would not displease me.”

You can’t figure out what he means by that, or if there’s irony involved, which would make it that much more befuddling, so you just raise an eyebrow at him, then shake the thought away.  “Dag nab it, Dirk!” You say, putting on your most determined face. “We are going to change this posthaste.”

There’s a wide smirk across his face.  “If we find tacos in the jungle, I’ll be very impressed.”

You stomp your foot meaningfully, but he turns away and keeps moving forward.  “Cancel all plans, Mr. Strider.  You’re having dinner at Chez English!”

“Consider my day planner erased.”  Swipe.  He’s just cut through a drapery of vines.

You continue forward for a little while longer, and eventually the only thing you reach is the beach, a place you’ve been daily since you were born.  The sea breeze caresses you gently, and you close your eyes for a brief moment, breathing in the salty air.  The sun is almost to the horizon, but you can still feel the heat of it on your skin.

You open your eyes to see Dirk looking at you.  There is a fierceness about his look, and you just look back. “Dirk?”

The spell breaks, and the fierceness is gone, replaced by cool apathy.  “So, which way’s your place, dude?”

“Oh, uh, thataway!” you say, blinking a few times and pointing northward.

He nods, and does a little bow.  “Lead the way.”

You hesitate for the briefest of seconds, but move forward.

The trek home is even shorter than the tiny adventure that you had, following the shoreline.  You manage to keep conversation going, and Dirk’s gone on to the topic of lusii, which is what he calls the beasts that occupy the island.  You discover a lot more about them than you’d ever intended to learn, but that doesn’t change the fact that some still try to eat you.  Except those adorable fairy bulls.

You both agree that you rather like those.

At last, you reach the house.  It’s twilight, and the familiar sight of home is a comfort.  Proudly, you guide Dirk inside, giving him a full blown tour.  He seems relatively impressed, but exasperated about your ridiculous amount of movie posters and films.

“Can I have a drink?” he asks after a while.  You nod, and in an effort to please, you grab it and then run back up.  He smirks, and says, “Where’s the fire, dude?  No need to rush.”

You shrug and hand him the bottle of orange soda.  “I’m just excited.  That’s all.”

He nods, and opens the bottle.  There’s a loud hiss and then suddenly there’s orange fizz all over Dirk.  His face is one of mild shock, but he quickly composes himself.

“Wouldn’t happen to have a spare pair of pants, would you?”

An abashed smile crosses your face.  “Only shorts.”

“Shorts are fine.”

You cross the room and open the dresser, rummaging through to find a hopefully suitable pair.  You toss him some that you feel might work, but you’re not really sure.  Your builds are entirely different.

There’s an awkward silence as Dirk examines the shorts, then slowly turns his gaze up to you over the top of his shades.  “Do you mind if I just…?”

“Oh, right.”  You can feel your face flushing a brilliant red.  “I’ll just go downstairs and start making dinner.”

“All right.”

You leave, jogging down the stairs.  You hear a few muffled curses and then, a little louder, “Jesus Christ, Jake, child-bearing hips much?”

“I heard that!” You call, and begin the preparations for dinner.  You pull out everything that could ever possibly be conceived of in a taco, and throw the meat on the stove to cook.

“Heard what?”

You ignore him and continue making dinner, mumbling to yourself, “Child-bearing hips!  Well, I never!”

“Dude, I’m fuckin’ skinny!”  You hear him shout from upstairs.  “Where are your belts?”

“In the bottom drawer!  They’ve all got gun holsters attached, though.”

A pause.

“Dude.  Gay.”

“Not so!” you retort loudly.

“Fuck it.  I’ve got boxers on, who cares.  I’m coming down.”

 _Holy smokes_ , you think, _Dirk in boxers?_  The thought surprisingly tantalizes you, and you’re unsure why.  He’s your best bro.  Should you really feel that way?  Perhaps it’s just your ability to appreciate what the good green Earth manages to produce.

There’s the pounding of feet and suddenly he’s in the kitchen and your heart rate bumps up a notch.  You glance back and there he is.  Underwear and all.  And by “all,” you mean nothing else.

“Nice knickers, there,” you say.

“Boxers,” he corrects.

“Same thing.”

The meat’s nearly finished, and the smell has taken over the kitchen.  “The meat’s almost ready to go.”  You look back at him, and you see his head turn away sharply to some of your kitchen decor.  “You can go ahead and pick out what you think you’d like on your taco.”

“Food,” he says decisively.

You raise a brow.  “Well there’s plenty of that.  Just take your pick.”

“This might not be wise.”  He starts to look over the array of food you’ve set out.  “I sit here before a veritable smorgasbord of things I’ve never eaten before and I’m being given carte blanche to it.”

You shrug.  “Don’t worry about it.  Enjoy yourself.”  You scoop the finally cooked meat onto a large plate and then start making your own.  Dirk watches with a frown before starting to make one, throwing on a little of everything.

“Okay so…”  He stares downward at the taco.  “How do I eat this thing?”

A grin spreads widely across your face.  “Well it actually requires a lot of finesse.  Here.  Like so.”  You take a bite of your own.

He attempts to take a bite, only managing to have half the taco fall onto the dishware.  You try to stifle a laugh, but it comes through, and you’re laughing so hard you have to set down your food for fear of dropping it.  Dirk just kind of sits there, staring at the remains, before picking them up nonchalantly and beginning to eat them with his fingers.  “Fuck it, I give up trying to make it look presentable.”

“Glad you figured that out quickly,” you chuckle at him, amused by the sight of the sophisticated and dexterous Strider reduced to scooping handfuls of food into his mouth like an infant.  “Anything else you want?”

He freezes, swallowing awkwardly around his too-big mouthful, slowly turning his gaze up to your face.  You get the distinct feeling he wants to say something, but he silently swallows again, shakes his head, and starts to eat fast.  You can’t help but swell a little with pride that he enjoys your meal so much he doesn’t feel the need to add anything to it.  He silently nods when you ask him for verbal confirmation that he’s pleased by it, and eventually makes himself another one.  He chews the food longer than is really necessary, and seems to savor each and every bite.  You know dinner is a success.

“Do you want me to send you home with some food?” you ask when you’ve both finished.

He nods.  “That would be great.”

“Consider it done!”

He glances over at you, and you can see the orange of his eyes again.  “You know, you’re a pretty great guy, English.  Goofy, but great.”

A blush creeps up your cheeks.  You know the compliment was brought on by your offer of food, but it still seems to have come out of the blue to you.  “Well shucks.  You’re a pretty great guy yourself, Dirk.”

His eyes go wide behind his shades, and his mouth flutters a few times as he fishes for words.  “I, uh…” he scrambles for a response.  “Thanks, man.”

It’s not the stellar reception you might have hoped for, so to avoid dragging it out further, you clear your throat and get up for the fridge.  “Do you want something more to drink?”

He stares at the table, even though his plate is clear.  You can’t tell if it means he’s trying to avoid looking at you.  The guy doesn’t seem to take compliments very well in person.  “What else do you have?”

You make a long list of things, but he settles on a bottle of cherry limeade.

You also insist upon introducing him to chocolate chip biscuits, which he’s never had before — actually, he says, he’s never had any sweets before, excepting the cotton candy that never seems to be in short supply where he comes from.  You hand him a few Chips Ahoy, and he stuffs them all in his mouth whole as you watch, agog.

“Cheese and crackers, man, at least savor them!”

“I am savoring,” he mumbles out through his overfilled mouth.

“You can’t possibly be!  By God, Strider, slow down a bit!”

At your words, you can swear he makes a gagging noise, and his face steadily turns bright pink.  He swallows delicately and chews the rest like his jaw has been wired shut.  The sluggishness of his actions perturbs you.

“You all right there, Strider?”  He nods fervently at you, face going redder, and you’re not convinced.  You reach out to grip his shoulder.  “Holy smokes, you’re not choking, are you?”

He swallows the rest of his biscuits in pieces and assures you he’s fine, he’s just had a strange thought.  Curious, you attempt to coax it out of him, but the more you try, the redder he gets, and eventually you concede that although you’re sure you would understand, he simply is not going to tell you, and you force yourself to let it go.

It’s almost 9 o’clock now, and you suppose that means he should be leaving soon, but you realize that trying to find his half of the transporter in the dark is going to be impossible.  You glance over at him, at the delight you can tell he’s been hiding, and know from the smirk twitching at his face that he must have long since come to this conclusion as well.

“Say, Dirk…” You say, looking into your bottle, “Would you want to stay the night?”

Saying it aloud still catches him off guard, though.  He almost chokes on his own bottle and looks over at you, orange eyes huge.  “Um.  Yeah, sure, I guess.  If you’re okay with that.”

“Capital,” you say.  “Do you want to borrow some pajamas?”

He turns and gives you a look from behind his shades.  “I usually sleep in my boxers. It’s fine.”

“Oh.”  The thought makes your heart leap again and you don’t know why.  You tell yourself sternly to stop these thoughts at once.  “Well, I’m going to go change.  I’ll be back in a bit.  Meet me in the room?  You can have the bed.”

He makes an upset face.  “Dude, I don’t want to kick you out of your bed.”

“I’m being a good host, Strider.  So hush.”

He hushes and you rush to get changed in the bathroom.  You tug on your pants and a shirt, and hurriedly brush your teeth.  You then take the stairs two at a time to your bedroom.  He’s not there yet, so you assume he’s finishing his drink.  Quickly, you find a sleeping bag and a spare pillow and place them on the floor for yourself.  Perfect.  You climb in and wait patiently, your heart galloping at a mile a minute.

There are footsteps then on the hardwood floors, sending your heart flying even faster.

Here he comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'ey y'all just thought i'd add this because of reasons, even though there's another link later -- there is a blog purely for this fic, which both of us moderate, at [AskHopefulHeart](http://askhopefulheart.tumblr.com).
> 
> thanks for all the attention so far, guys!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dang, we've gotten quite a bit of praise for the first chapter! Thanks guys! Friendly reminder that [both](http://dirkstriderschoicebooty.tumblr.com) [writers](http://valkyrienix.tumblr.com) have tumblrs, and we're going to update this every Monday.

You sit at the table, rolling the limeade bottle between your gloved hands.  The tabletop is worn and grooved in such a way that suggests your friend may not have much care for using a cutting board, but you don't study it too intently; your eyes glazed out of focus a few minutes ago.

_What the hell is Jake up to?_

So much of his behavior is bothering the shit right out of you — not that he's annoying you, because he's not — not directly, anyway.  You simply do not understand his motivations.  You suppose that much is annoying, although you're sure that's not his intention.  Actually, you're not sure.  You have little to no idea what he wants.  Maybe he's just trying to torment you, and he's picking really stupid and infuriating ways to do it.

Like all the really obvious innuendo he'd been dropping.  A low-spoken offer of "anything else you'd like?" punctuated by an unblinking stare, a pained cry of "slow down, Strider!" accompanied by grabbing you fiercely.  Why the hell would he pull shit like that?  Doesn't he know what it would do to your head?  And then pretending to not know exactly which direction your mind took with those suggestions.  Or maybe he wasn't pretending; maybe he genuinely is so inept as to not realize what he was doing.  It's dubious, though, too consistent with the rest of his actions to be coincidence.

His stumble in the jungle, for one.  What even had been his deal with that?  You know English is the personified antithesis of adroit and graceful, but even he wouldn't trip over his own two feet like that, would he?  Nor would he just stand there gawking at you with his face lodged in your pecs long after he'd regained his equilibrium.  Not unless he had ulterior motives… or was a lot closer to clinical retardation than you'd thought, and you sincerely doubt that much.  He's not the sharpest spoon in the drawer, but he's not handicapped.  It had to have been a gambit to play grabby-hands at your chest.  The classic swooning damsel ploy.  That you could see straight through it like a stripper's stockings was all the more in keeping with his less than recondite nature.

Then there'd been his dinner suggestion.  Why a taco, of all things?  Did it have to be _taco?_   _Really?_  He has to know about you; everyone and their grandfather knows about you, even if you forbid them from slapping labels and categories on things so complex and venerated as the multifaceted paradigm of a human being.  He had to have picked the word deliberately.  Not subtle, English.

And what was most baffling — why the actual certifiable fuck had he put the transportalizer in the middle of the damn jungle?  He'd assured you it was someplace safe, and you have to be frank, the phrase "someplace safe" does not conjure to mind images of the primeval Amazon.  Had he not wanted you to appear in his house?  Had he intended for some wild escapade in the jungle?  Or… had he put it in a place where he knew it was likely to get lost?  Did he intend to keep you here?  If so, he's succeeded; there's little chance you'll find the thing in broad daylight, let alone in the impenetrable darkness of the island.

You rest the sweating bottle on your forehead, scrunching your brow against its comfortable chill.

You hate forging ahead when the trail is unknown, hate leaving variables up to chance.  You are physically incapable of just going with the flow without the aid of some sort of severe mental breakdown.  You have a deep-seated, consuming need to know what's going to happen before it does, prepare for all possible wrenches in the gears, find all the strings so you can be the one pulling them.  Finding strings being pulled by someone else alarms you to a degree that you sometimes worry might be pathological.  You know English is pulling strings.  But you can't see what those strings are, where they lead, or how many he's got, and you don't want to go up there and calmly shoot the shit with him from his bed or basically interact with him at all until you've got this figured out.  You really do not.

You guess it's probably pretty weird keeping him waiting while you sit here ruminating in your undies, though.  You suddenly note the absence of the light filtering down from the top of the spiral staircase, and realize it went off some time ago.

You slump back in your chair and let out a sigh so heavy Jake could bench-press it.  You guess you don't have to do much interacting while you're sleeping, right?  You can figure this shit out in the morning.

You down the rest of your limeade, leave the bottle on the table, and hit the light switch for the kitchen as you trudge up the stairs.

You're fairly accustomed to operating in only the light offered by celestial bodies at night, having no cities left to ignite the dark for you.  However, a large part of your ability to navigate the bomb site of your apartment comes not from your highly developed night vision, but from sheer familiarity, the routine intimacy of simply knowing where all of your crap is.  Jake's room is something you've only seen in bits and snatches over webcam, not nearly enough to confidently stroll across it in this pitch, no matter how well you can see in it.

You take a few steps forward off the stairs and accept that you have no idea where you are.

"Jake."

In the split second pause before he responds, you worry that he's fallen asleep so soon, and chastise yourself for being so readily paranoid.  "Yes, Dirk?"

The words were enough to give you a general idea of his location, but insufficient for an accurate pinpoint.  "Where the hell are you?  It's darker than the Bat Cave in a power outage in here and I don't want to step on you."

"I'm over here," he replies, and his voice is followed by the soft whisper of a nylon sleeping bag as he shifts inside it.  "Next to the bed."

It's been long enough that your eyes should have adjusted, even with your shades, but things are still too muddy for you to make out.  The composition of his room naturally makes for less allowance of light filtration.  "I have no idea where the bed is in relation to where I am."

"Maybe take the glasses off?"

You ignore his suggestion because how could he know you still have them on unless he can see your face, what if your expression betrays all the thoughts clanging around in your head, and you can't take that risk when there are already so many strings you're not pulling.  You recognize the glint of a bedpost near the direction of his voice, and beside it, a pale box-like blur that you discern must be the dresser from which he'd tried to retrieve shorts for you.  Pushing out of your shoes, you move toward the dresser and carefully place your shades on it.  The loss of tinted plexiglas improves your sight somewhat, though you still don't see English, which is well enough because you wouldn't know what to do with him right now anyway.  You slide into his bed and try to formulate a vague outline of what you might want to say to him, but you can't figure out what you want to know, so the effort is futile.  His covers are much softer than yours, the bed as a whole much springier, and you have trouble finding a comfortable position.  You realize the shirt that still clings to your frame is probably not helping matters, so you sit up and whip it off, casting it to the side of the bed opposite from the way you entered.  You hear it land on something, but the sounds don't stop there.

Jake makes a sound of surprise from the floor, and you turn your head in his direction automatically, though you still can't see him.  "You okay?"

He chuckles, "That was my face, Strider."

Your stomach drops.   _Awesome._  That was about as smooth a move as a thirteen year old boy breathing heavily down a cheerleader's neck.  You flop backward onto the pillows and smack your hands onto your face, mumbling between them, "Shit, dude, I'm sorry."

He's laughing now.  "It's fine, chum!  No worries."

Your mouth is moving and you can't stop it.  "Here I am worried as hell about not stepping on you or not saying something stupid or whether I'm allowed to take off clothes in front of you and if so how much and why the transportalizer is out in the jungle, and—"

He cuts you off with a howl of laughter.  "Cripes, Dirk!" he cries, "It's just a shirt!  It's not as though it smells awful."

You sigh so deeply it doesn't end before several rounds of giggles from Jake; if anything, the sigh seems to spur him on.  "Good to know," you mutter into your palms.  "I wouldn't want the intoxicating allure of my magnetizing man musk to overpower you."  He's almost in tears now, and you mumble on, "Not that I would blame you if it did; I have been known to freeze robotic drones in their tracks from the sheer sexual force of my aroma."  He lets out an idiosyncratic English-ism about baby Jesus poop or something, and he assures you that you smell just fine.  "Oh, wonderful," you say, rolling away from him onto your side, "what a compliment, 'just fine,' most flattering thing I've heard all day."

His giggles are calming, and you decide to try to tune out the incessant buzzing in your head and make some sort of attempt at sleep.  It's almost working, but then he makes a noise behind you, shifting as he gets comfortable, and your mind screeches to life again.  You've almost drifted once more when his voice floats up to poke at your back, his tone gentle and uncharacteristically mellow.  "If you must know, you actually smell quite… wonderful."

A flower of heat blooms in your stomach.  You stammer over a response, and after a moment of allowing yourself embarrassment at verbally tripping, you simply thank him and fall silent.

He says nothing, just clears his throat in a manner that sounds unnecessarily drawn-out, and after a heavy pause, bids you a civil good night.  You don't respond.  You wouldn't know how.

 

==>

 

It’s dark, and you’re lying in the sleeping bag still.  Dirk hasn’t come in yet, and you lie there with wide eyes thinking.  The day has been a long one, but your heart thuds against your chest with excitement.  Never did you think that meeting Strider would be this great.  It’s been more than great.  Fantastic, even.  Superb.  Your list of ways to describe the day go for miles.

Suddenly though, you hear footsteps, and you know that Dirk is coming up the stairs at last. You listen closely.  “English?” comes his voice from the door.

“Yes?”

There’s no response, and shuffling is heard.  It’s pitch black, the only light coming from one of your many computers’ chargers, flashing.  Something catches on your foot, there’s a loud, “Fuck!” and suddenly there’s somebody on top of you.  Your whole body freezes up, and you whisper, “Strider?”

There’s no response.

“Strider…?” you say again, a little more loudly.

“Fuck it,” you hear, and suddenly Dirk’s kissing you.  You’re so startled you don’t know what to do except lie there.  After a few moments, he stops, and there’s another low curse, then another, and another, louder, and then he’s silent.  He says at last, “Sorry.”

You don’t know what to say.  You open and close your mouth several times but nothing comes out.

He climbs off of you, and peripherally, you see him crawl into the bed.  “Pretend that never happened, dude.”

You try to say something again, but you, the chatterbox, are lost for words.  It’s a long time before you can say anything at all, and by that time you’re sure he’s asleep.

“Dirk,” you say.

Immediately, he replies, “What?”

You start to struggle for words again.  “Do you… Have you… _Cripes_.”  You’re having trouble phrasing this.

“Look, if you want to me to leave, that’s fine.  I’ll go out there and try to fin—”

“No!” you say quickly, “No, no, no.  No.”

“Then what?”

“You kissed me.”

“Well no shit, Sherlock.”

You wince.  You took too long to say anything and now he’s hurt.  “You’re attracted to me?”

“Yeah.  For a while now.”

“Oh.”

There’s silence again.  It’s choked, and awkward, and your heart is in your throat.

“Dirk,” you say again after a few minutes.

“What, English?”  There’s an exasperated sigh, and you know he wants to leave and forget any of it ever happened.

“Do it again.”

Silence.

“Dirk, do it again.”

He’s on top of you so fast that his figure blurs.  “Jake,” is all he says.  His voice is hard.  Iron.  An unbreakable sword.

“I mean it,” you say.

“Don’t indulge me just because you want to be a gentleman, English,” he says angrily.  His breath is hot and heavy, his mouth inches from your face.

“I’m not!”

“Don’t lie.”  His hands tighten on your shoulders, pressing almost to a point of pain.  “I know you want to be nice, but you’ll hurt me more than you’ll help.  Let it go.”

“No!”  Anger pulses through you, sudden and unexpected.  “Don’t push me away like you always do!”  All you want to do is pound on his chest and shout at him.  You feel your shoulders seize under his hands, and you take a deep breath to calm them.  “We may be best bros, Strider, but you still keep yourself locked up behind all your cool sarcasm and wit.  I can never really get close to you and I don’t think you realize how frustrating it is!”

Dirk remains silent, but you feel his hands leave your body and clench into fists on either side of your pillow.

“You’ve done whatever you can to keep me at arm’s length and if you ask me, buster, that’s rather self-defeating, isn’t it?  If you really wanted to get close to me, to have me as more than a friend, you shouldn’t be doing this!”

“English,” he says, and there’s a warning in his tone.  A warning you pay no heed to.

“Don’t tell me I’m lying when I’m not!  I’m not _being_ a gentleman, I’m not _indulging_ you.  I want this, too!  I just never knew, because you never gave me a chance to know I should.”

“Why the hell would you want _me?”_ he says quietly.  “Like you said, I keep you at an arm’s length.  I’m sarcastic half the time and the other half I’m a huge asshole.  It doesn’t help that I’m a freak with orange eyes and am skinny as fuck.”

You try to see past the shades he’s still wearing like a moron.  It’s hard to see in the dark, and all you can make out is your own reflection still.  “Damn it all, Strider.  Maybe it’s because I’m not just some guy.  Maybe it’s because despite the fact that you’ve kept me at an arm’s length, I’ve still managed to see you.”

“See me?”

You take off his pointed glasses.  “Yes.”

He closes his eyes against the loss of his shades, and keeps them shut, refuses to make eye contact and acknowledge the position you’re both in.  “What do you mean.”

What does he mean, what do you mean?  “Everything you never want anyone else to see.  How you worry so much, how you’re never sure how to approach anyone.  How meticulous and obsessive you are.  And how lonely.  And I want to fill that loneliness, Dirk.  I do.”

“English, you can’t be serious.  There isn’t any possible way you cou—”

You don’t give him a chance to finish, pulling him down into a kiss.  With great effort, you try to pour every single emotion you’ve ever had for him into it.  Every single thought and every single memory into that one kiss, exactly how much you’ve always cared for him and need to be there for him.  You’ll be damned if he doesn’t get it after this.

After a few moments, he starts to kiss back.  It’s soft and gentle, but with such an intensity and need that suddenly you feel overwhelmed.  His tongue slides into your mouth, and all of your dams crash down in a flood of affection and exhilaration and want.  You fling your arms around his neck and pull him closer.  He doesn’t protest, just presses himself against you.  The heat of his body spreads across you, and you can feel a fire sparking to life in your lower abdomen.

And then he’s broken away, and he’s looking at you, unsure.  His orange eyes are bright and gleaming, and suddenly you realize you can see into them.  You can see Dirk.  “Jake, I…” he’s trying to say something, but you just shake your head and pull him back down.  Touching, nose to nose.

“It’s okay, Dirk.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, and releases a pent up breath that he’s held for the past few moments.  Then he’s kissing you again, and you have no room for coherent thought.  There is only Dirk’s mouth, moving against yours passionately, with no boundaries.  He pauses only to pull off your sleepwear, his lips only breaking from you in split seconds where absolutely necessary.

When he slides into the sleeping bag beside you, you don't question it; you welcome him.  You flip onto your side to make room and never let his mouth leave yours, pulling his naked form close against you and sliding a hand down his ribcage, reveling in the sparks of sensation dancing along your skin from sharing bare contact with another human being.  The muscles that run beneath are hard and taut but his flesh is soft, so soft and pliant, and your palm finds purchase in the dip of his waist.  His hands memorize your body with feverish curiosity, rubbing and squeezing everywhere they can find, stoking the fire that burgeons forth hotter and hotter in the pit of your stomach.

When he rolls you onto your back to rake his hands down your sides, the heat growing inside you is too much to bear silently any longer, and you break free from his lips at last with a groan.  They slip down your neck, leaving a sticky trail to your collarbone, where they latch on and begin to coax a mark out of you, along with elated whimpers that might contain his name in pieces.  You grip his shoulders, his hair, his sides, and he gropes at your front, skillful fingers finding as many muscles as they can to grab in palmfuls.

You're so occupied by his tongue tickling at your neck that don't notice the southward direction his hands have tentatively been working until one of them slides down the line of your hip and closes firm fingers around your length.

You give a gasp, not having even noticed how hard he'd made you, not recognizing the heat in your belly for what it was, too caught up in the overwhelming sensations of touching and being touched by another human being for the first time in your life.  At your gasp, his hands still, his mouth slowing its work, gauging your reaction, but you don't disappoint him.  Your hands clench in his hair and your hips twitch upward, begging movement from him, and he doesn't disappoint you either.  His hand slides slowly, demanding explicit attention toward the tightness between your legs and how paralyzingly uncomfortable it's swiftly becoming, but at the same time, paradoxically, it feels so good, his skin on yours feels so good, so unbelievably good, and you buck up into his palm on reflex.  His touches turn the stiff ache into something wonderful and magnify it, his motions so different from your own, and you pull his face off your throat and back to your mouth, latching on to his lips and drinking him down as his ministrations quicken.  The heat in your gut has spread like molten lava through your veins, a heat that beats in time with your pulse, stemming from his hand sliding over you, and you can feel it growing, mounting, peaking—

You wake, your legs not twisted around Dirk’s, but tangled in the sleeping bag.  You’re sweaty, like in the dream, only Dirk’s not on top of you, but in the bed beside you, his soft breath coming in tiny puffs.  A sigh escapes you, your body coming down off its high, chilled by the early morning breeze that drifts through the ever-open window. _Just a dream_ , you tell yourself, _just a dream_.

You’re not sure why you even believed it had been real in the first place.  You remember Dirk coming in, finding his way under the covers, and throwing his shirt on your face.  Boy howdy, how he freaked out about that, and you can sort of understand why.  All the things you’d told him in the dream were true in a way, after all.  There are moments when you can see through his icy coolkid act and catch glimpses of someone who hates himself and craves human contact, someone the girls would never recognize.

You start to roll over and freeze when something in your underwear doesn’t feel right.

_Damn._

It’s a sensation you’re familiar with enough to recognize, though you thankfully haven’t experienced it in a while.  You grit your teeth and silently fume at yourself for a moment.  It’s not as if you’ve never had passing thoughts like that about your friends, entertained certain what-ifs just for kicks, and it’s not as though these hypothetical fantasies had never leaked into your dreams before, and caused your dreams to leak in turn onto your sheets.  But it had never been like this.  The dream had been so vivid, so absolutely _lifelike_ , and he had been asleep right there next to you the whole time.  He’s still right there next to you, snoozing away.  What if you waken him when you move to get cleaned up?  He’s so close, you’d be astounded if he didn’t rise.  So close, in fact, you can practically still smell him next to you...

You acquiesce that you’ll have to get up and get cleaned before he rouses of his own doing.  Stretching your arms above your head, you sit, and something soft and white falls off your forearm onto your lap.

You pick up the bundle of white fabric and uncrumple it in your hands to find an orange baseball cap insignia.

You blink at it a few times before registering what it is.

Did you really sleep with Dirk’s shirt all night? You bring the fabric up to your nose and inhale deeply.

He really does smell good.

You shake the thought away because it feels kind of creepy in light of the dream you just had, and you leave the shirt on the floor next to your sleeping bag as you get up, trying to keep everything contained in your thoroughly ruined underwear.  You sneak away as quietly as you can and get cleaned up and changed with minimal noise, sorrowfully discarding your soiled knickers.  The sleeping bag can probably just be cleaned, but you don’t want to get in it again until after, so you sit on top of it and wait for him to get up.  You almost put the shirt back on the bed with him, but you end up folding it over your knees and resting your cheek on it instead.  Creepy or not, the scent calms you.

And why shouldn’t it?  He is your best bro, after all.  It’s natural, if not expected, that his scent should be comforting to you.  And his voice.  And his eyes.  And his touch.  That’s all normal because you’re such good mates, right?

A good mate that you’ve fantasized about a great many times.

Not that you haven’t about each of the girls, but you have to admit, it’s... different with Dirk.  You’ve thought about it with Jane and Roxy because they’re the only girls you know, but if being a girl is so important, why do you think about Dirk too?  There’s no end-of-the-line desperation with him, no pressure for procreation or any such basic triviality.  You just... like him.

A lot.

Okay, maybe your dream is trying to tell you something.

You breathe in the smell of his shirt and wait for him to wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry not sorry for the tease
> 
> cackles like satan


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit this one's almost the length of the first two chapters combined
> 
> whoopsies

You're still clutching his shirt when Dirk wakes up. He rolls over, blinking at you lazily.  His hair is mussed, and his orange eyes half-lidded and sleepy.  You sit up a little straighter and say, “Dirk!” a little too enthusiastically.  Act normal, English.  You don’t want him to know what went on in your pants last night!

“Hey, man,” he says, and there’s a hint of amusement in his voice.  His gaze slides down to the shirt that you’re holding, and you swear you see a blush creeping up his cheeks.  His eyes almost provoke a shiver down your spine, but you hold it back.  You must be the picture of normalcy.  “Still can’t believe I dropped a shirt on your face,” he mumbles, sitting up. The sheets rustle with his movements, and you gulp.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” you reply, unfurling the offending article of cloth.  “It was just a shirt.  As I said, it’s not like it smells horrid or anything.”  It smelled damn fine, if anyone asked you.  More than fine.

“Good to know,” he says, and swings his legs out of bed.  You ignore his legs, how finely sculpted they are, the white blonde hair, the light brush of freckles that seems to have dusted his entire body...

You mentally slap yourself.  You’re Jake English.  You can handle this.  “Did you sleep alright?” you ask, hoping he didn’t catch the hitch in your voice as you struggled with yourself to regain control.

“Pretty well,” he replies, stretching.  Your eyes trail along every defined muscle.  You desperately want to run your tongue down his chest, to drag your hands through his hair.  He doesn’t seem to notice your eyes burning holes into him.  “Your bed is a lot softer than mine,” he continues, and he idly scratches his chest before standing up.

Okay, that’s enough.  You can’t take anymore of this indirect sexual assault.  You’re going to break in two at this rate, and he’ll be right there to watch.  You stand up to go put some shorts on, throwing his shirt at him as you move, and he catches it without even blinking.  “Must be nice having a bed that soft all the time,” he says, tugging the shirt on.  You’re surprised to find his hair remains perfectly swept and styled.   _Wowza,_ is all you can think.

“Perhaps a new mattress for you is in order?” you say, pausing in front of your dresser and cracking your back.

He puts on his shades, and a flare of anger rises in you.  You meant what you said in your dream.  You wanted him to open up a little, to let you in.  So much for that.  That was a dream.  This is real life.

“Maybe...” he says, “My lower back kind of hurts.  I’m not used to sleeping on something with the consistency of a day old marshmallow.”

That elicits a laugh from you.  “I s’pose adjusting to a new bed takes quite a bit, eh?”

“I’m gonna go with a definite yes.”

As you zipper up your shorts, you can’t help but say, “Perhaps you should sleep over more often, Strider.”  You hope he didn’t notice the tone in your voice.  The tone that screamed, _Fuck me, please_.  You continue on without pausing, hoping to cover your tracks.  “Anyway, how about breakfast?”  You turn quickly for the door, avoiding looking at him.

“Sure,” comes the steady reply, “Sounds great.”  A pause.  “I mean breakfast.  Sounds great.”

“Right,” you say, already at the top of the stairs, “What do you want?  I’ve got the whole shebang.”

He’s at your back almost immediately.  His eagerness makes you want to laugh.  You do.  “Things that aren’t fish, crustaceans, and seaweed?  Sign me up.”

A small smile plays on your lips.  Boy, are you going to spoil him rotten!  You practically jog down the stairs in your eagerness.  “Right o!  I’ve got hash browns, eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles, and I’m _more_ than willing to make a good old fashioned breakfast crepe.”

There’s a pause in his footsteps.  “Oh my holy God’s bleeding left nipple,” he says, and you can’t help but snort at the obnoxiousness of the curse, the pure Dirk-ness of it.  “All of it.”

“All of it?” you say, but you’re not the least bit surprised.  “Coming right up!  I’ll need some help though.  You can cook, right?”

“Sure.”  You have no intention of letting him touch the food, though.  You have a sneaking feeling he knows diddly squat, just by the way he said sure.

“Capital!” you reply anyway.  You look back at him and realize he’s still in his boxers. “Do you um... _want_ some of my shorts?”   _Those legs_.  That’s all you can think about.

“Oh,” he says, as if the thought of pants hadn’t occurred to him until that very moment.  “Dressed.”  You nod.  “Right.  Um...  Probably.”

“Or... at least something?”  You try to hide the desperation from your voice but you think it might have slipped through a tad.

“Unless you’re comfortable with me walking around half naked.”

You inwardly groan.  What in Sam Heck are you supposed to say now?  That his nakedness offends you?  Most guys wouldn’t give a flying rat’s _patootie_ about their best friend walking around the house in a pair of boxers.  It was a natural thing.  No one cared.  But you care.

You care because all you want to do his grab his ass in rough fistfuls and pull his waist to yours.

You clear your throat.  “Um... I... I don’t particularly _mind_.  Because, after all, we _are_ best bros. I just don’t want you uncomfortable! That’s all!”

“I’m comfortable if you’re comfortable.”  You can practically hear the smile tugging at his lips.  “Kind of a hot morning anyway.”

“Great,” you say, nearly choking on your words.  What is with you today?  Yesterday you barely thought of any of this!  You couldn’t have given a damn about his legs, or his ass, or his chest, or anything!  Is this what one wet dream of your best friend was going to do to you?  Hell’s bells, no!  You were going to get over yourself, your desires, and get back to being the best friend Dirk could ever hope to have.  You’re not even sure he’d go for you anyway.  He probably had a thing for dear old Rox.  They were, close, weren’t they?  Kind of had a last humans left on Earth trope going on, right?

The very thought of him kissing her sets your heart ablaze with jealous passion.

“All right...” you say, surveying the kitchen with a deep breath, “What first?”

“Food.” You roll your eyes, and give him a look.  “So, do you just throw it in a pan with butter, or...?”  That earns him another look, and he raises his hands in mock surrender.

“No!”  You say this sternly, and go on a hefty rant about the nature of cooking properly.  He listens but finally just slaps his hands on the table with a calm and quiet force before saying, “Last time I had butter was never.  So yeah.”

“Holy fucking mackerel,” you say, barely breathing the words, definitely not mesmerized by the way his arms tug at his pectorals in that position.  “First things first then.”

“I might just be a little turned on by dairy products here.”

Ignoring that phrase.  “Toast,” you reply, pulling out some bread.

“That’s not dairy, Jake.”  He says this with disapproval, and you can’t help but chuckle.

“Strider,” you say resolutely, “you are having toast.  With butter and cinnamon.”  You pause. “Or jam.”  Another pause.  “Or whatever tickles your fancy.” You start placing the bread in the toaster, and you hear Dirk mumble something under his breath.  You think he said something along the lines of, “ _You_ tickle my fancy,” but it’s probably your imagination.  There isn’t a chance in heaven that he’d say that to you!  “What was that?” you say, as you pull the levers of the toaster down.

“What?” he says innocently.

“You said something?”

“I have not uttered a solitary phoneme.  Have you considered getting your head examined, Jake?” he says, almost snidely, and you decide it really was your mind playing tricks on you.

“Phooey!” you say huffily, “I’m not daft in the head, and you know it!”  Not usually, anyway.  The toast pops and you quickly butter it with nimble fingers then hand it to him.  “Toast.”

He takes it and starts to examine it.  A smile crosses your face and you say, “I’ll start on the pancakes.”

“Why are we having toast _and_ pancakes?” he says.

“Well you said you wanted everything.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Do you not?  I can just make the classic eggs, toast, and bacon.”

“Whatever you want,” he says, “I’m easy.”

You hide a wince.  That son of a bitch was purposefully taunting you!  You know it!   _Easy._ By God, someone ought to give you a reward on your self-control.  “Anything you want, I’ll do!” you say finally.

“Really?” His voice is low, husky.

“Um... I... Well!  Well, I mean it!” you manage to stammer out.  “This is about a million firsts for you right now.  Whatever you want, I’m willing to do it.”

“That’s a hell of an offer, English,” he practically purrs.

You harden your resolve.  “Well, I’m quite sincere about it, Strider!”

“Tempting,” he says, and you swear by your pistols it was almost in a sing-song manner.

“Really,” you say, an edge in your voice, “anything you want.”

He raises an eyebrow and aims an unblinking stare at you over the top of his pointed shades.  “I want sausage.”

You just about choke on air, and barely keep your balance under the brief dizzy spell that threatens to seize you.  “I... well.  Um.  I’m sure I could accommodate that.”

“Could you?” His voice is so breathy you’re surprised you can still hear it.  Must be that your hearing has been fine-tuned by all those years dealing with jungle monsters, and definitely not a matter of your pounding heart ramping all of your senses up to eleven.  “Do you have a palatable specimen of sausage for me to sample, English?”

Okay, that’s just too much.  He has to know what’s going on in your head.  There’s no way this could be coincidence.  Though... maybe it is.  You can’t bring yourself to ask, so you simply raise a brow and nod, opening the freezer to pull out some microwavable links out, and you place them in the convection oven to cook.  “There we have it, just a moment for you there, Strider.  Now about the rest...?”

The amusement in his voice is clear.  “You’re too much, Jake.”

You decide that that’s enough of that.  “Well make a decision!”  You know your cheeks are flaming red.

“Uh...” Something snaps back in Dirk, and the impassive tone and expression is back in moments.  “I really don’t care.  Just do whatever you want and I’ll go along with it.”

Well that whole ordeal still managed to get you nowhere.

You sigh, exasperated.  “Fine.  I’ll do the classic.  But I’ll be sure to include extra dairy.”

“Man, my guts are going to tie up in knots.  All this dairy in one meal after basically never eating it before?  You may have to nurse me through my torment,” he says, eyeing the cheese you take out.  You like your eggs with some cheese, what can you say?

“You’re going to have get used to it if you’re going to be here more often.  And you are, aren’t you?”  You start to make scrambled eggs.

“I guess so, yeah.  Then you’ll just have to get used to nursing me.”  He adds a dramatic sigh.

“I’m fine with that,” you reply, and theres a loud hiss as you pour the egg and milk mixture into the hot pan.  “Just another excuse to hang out with my best bro!”

“Okay,” he says, then after a moment’s pause, he tacks on, “Are you going to get a Leg Avenue nurse costume or does that cost extra?”

You nearly drop your cooking utensils.

“Cripes, no!!!” you say irritably, “I’m a man, Dirk.  I’ll just dress extra adventure-y.  How’s that?”

“I can get behind that.”

 _Oh really?_ you want to say, but you hold back.  You slide the eggs from the pan and onto two plates.  “Right o!  Do you want salt and pepper on your eggs?”

“Sure.  Whatever.”

You quickly salt them and then serve it up.  “And lastly, the bacon!”  You get started, frying the strips of meat as skillfully as possible.  Not that it’s hard, but you want to make sure Dirk’s breakfast is the best one he’s ever had.

Dirk, meanwhile, finally takes a bite of the toast, and you hear a groan escape him that sends your body into spasms of want.  “I’m done,” he says, laying his head on the table, “actually done.  This is awesome.”

“I’ve never seen that sort of reaction to toast before...” you murmur, at the same time the convection oven rings to notify you the sausage links are done.  You plate the links without Dirk batting an eye, and he pushes them around for a while before returning to his eggs.  If he isn’t going to eat them, why did he want them?  The little bugger sure is weird.

After a few minutes of silence filled only by the sounds of grease snapping in the pan, you start pulling out the bacon strips and putting them on his plate.  He grabs two while they’re still steaming and shovels them into his mouth, disregarding all grace and Strider cool for the lure of bacon.  You never imagined the sight of Dirk eating would be so amusing, and you’re trying your hardest not to laugh.

“Cripes, are you that hungry?” you say, grinning.

“I like bacon,” is his reply.

“I can see that.”  You take a piece yourself and start munching thoughtfully.  You both take a few minutes just to eat, until he picks up a sausage link at last.  You can’t help but catch his stare as he moves the link slowly toward his mouth and locks his lips around it, carefully pushing it into his mouth until it disappears.  He licks his fingertips with languid strokes of the tongue and stares at you without a single blink the whole time.  You clear your throat loudly and he begins to chew, though you think you can see a smile tugging at his mouth.  “So!  What do you want to drink?  Milk?  Juice?”

“Whatever, man.”

“Orange juice, it is.”

“Thanks bro,” he says, and slides another sausage into his mouth. 

“No problemo!” you say, and once more you give him your classic double pistols and a wink.

He makes a choked sound and his face turns bright red.  A cough escapes him, and then it’s followed by several more violent ones.  Your heart seizes up.  “Are you alright?”  He nods several times, trying to collect himself.  You can’t stop yourself from touching his arm and getting closer to him, ready to thump him on the back if need be.  Definitely just to thump him on the back, and not to feel his leanly sculpted bicep or shoulder blade.  He pulls away from your touch to cough harder, and you insist, “I’d drink something if I were you...” handing him the carton of orange juice.  He’s grabbed it from you in seconds and is guzzling it with enthusiasm.

After at least a minute of wordless chugging, he breaks away with a sigh.  “Thanks, English.”  And he’s back to his cool self.

“No problem,” you say, and start to eat your own breakfast.  He continues to eat like this is the last food he’ll ever see.  You think this is kind of cute, actually.  If it’s possible for a Strider to _be_ cute.

You decide it’s a perfectly plausible thing.

Being an adorable rugged adventurer, though, is still not possible.

“So,” you begin, lazily eating your eggs, “when do you plan on leaving?”

He pauses in his eating, letting his black hole of a stomach take a rest.  “I hadn’t really planned one way or the other.  I kind of figured you’d kick me out tactfully when you were bored with me.”

“That would be bad manners!” you exclaim, horrified, “I wouldn’t kick you out, tactfully or otherwise.”

He shrugs, and goes back to inhaling breakfast and happily taking the seconds you’d placed on the table earlier.  You can’t seem to erase the grin from your face this morning... when you’re not busy trying to stop your brain from undressing him, that is.

“Do you want me to pack you some food for when you _do_ leave?” you ask.

He pauses to breathe again.  “That would be sick.  Thanks.”

You nod.  “My pleasure.  I can pack you a week’s worth of food if you like.”

“Well,” he says through a thick mouthful, “if I’m going to be spending more time over here, I can come here for meals or whatever, so that’s not really necessary, is it?”

“I suppose not...” you say, “I would imagine though that you’d like good food to come home to.  You know, something other than seaweed.  It would help to avoid the pressure of feeling like you have to travel to be fed.  After all, it’s not like you’re moving in here and can grab a decent meal whenever you want.”

A smirk touches his lips.  “Aw, and I was all ready for the housewarming party.”

A thought crosses your mind.  It’s so sudden and so alluring your heart stops. And because you fail to have a funnel between your mouth and your brain, it tumbles out into in the silent air.

“Well,” you say, almost breathlessly,  “do you _want_ to move in?”

 

==>

 

You literally cannot believe what you just heard.

Not figuratively, not "wow that was so unexpected oh gosh and golly," not "damn that was outrageous I'm so incredulous right now," no.  You literally cannot believe it.  Your jank-ass mind is playing tricks on you and recorded something that didn't actually happen, and it is now refusing to process the information it has just been given in a way that makes logical sense.

Jake just asked you to move in with him.

You have no idea what to do with that proposition.  So little idea, in fact, that you can't fully drill into your brain that it even happened.  All of your fantasies about Jake involve the carnal acts and afterglow cuddling without any regard to building up a plausible scenario of how you could've gotten there in the first place or what might transpire later.  Fantasies aren’t meant to be realistic.  And yeah, you’re aware that you have some key functional differences.  You're aware that he's pretty interpersonally oblivious and probably has a proclivity to avoiding emotional confrontation, and if future arguments should erupt, romantic item or not, you're aware that you have to be prepared to corner him if need be.

But he just asked you to move in with him.

Your solo anxiety jam of last night comes back to you, and you can’t help but wonder if this question was the root of all the strings you’d detected Jake pulling.  Sure would explain a lot.

Still, the question is so absurd, you have to ask him if he’s serious.  You don’t register the words leaving your mouth, but you must have spoken, because he says, “I’m perfectly alright with it!”  The blush creeping up his neck stalls your brain out again.  You refuse to accept the pitchy tone, the thinly veiled desperation.  You tell yourself you’re imagining it, even though you’re pretty sure you’re not anymore, because you don’t know how to confront the idea that the guy you’ve been pining after for years might actually return the sentiment.

When you'd woken this morning, you'd felt somewhat better about his odd behavior yesterday.  He is a bit of a gargantuan dork, and his people skills amount to zero, especially since his utter isolation on Gilligan's Island means he probably hasn't seen another human since his grandma died.  You'd also forgotten, in your state of fatigue-induced anxious paranoia, that he has absolutely no ability to read between the lines of others' behavior and has no capacity for subtlety.  He probably doesn't even know subtlety is a word that exists.  It could smack him on the ass and call him daddy and he'd be none the wiser for it, nor would he be amused by the irony of the word subtlety doing something very unsubtle.

Okay, now your brain is just generating complete bullshit in an inane attempt to keep you from thinking about what he's said.

In any event, you’d chalked it all up to him being an even bigger bumbling dork in person than he is online, and were content to leave it at that.  You felt free once again to awkwardly hit on him without wondering what he had up his sleeve, because he couldn’t be sly or crafty enough to put anything up his sleeves in the first place.

Your conclusion had lasted all of three minutes, because as soon as you'd gotten done with your lame and sadly unsuccessful attempt at coaxing a back massage offer out of him, you realized how odd the situation had been upon your waking.

He'd been sitting there gawking at you while you slept, not even in the damn sleeping bag but curled up on top of it, clearly having been awake for some time, and was huffing your shirt like a junior-high-schooler with a bag of superglue.

And whatever the hell he could've smelled in your shirt, you don't know, because the room had smelled kind of funky.  You hadn't registered the smell upon going to bed, but that didn't mean it hadn't been there before; just that you'd been too preoccupied to notice.  But once you were up and moving, you recognized the smell for what it was, and suddenly everything made sense in a really jarring and kind of fucked up way.

Someone definitely took their yogurt cannon for a swim last night, and you're pretty damn sure it wasn't you.

Either he'd had a rather saucy dream and experienced an accidental misfire, and you can surmise about whom it had been judging by your shirt stuffed up his nostrils, or he had deliberately cranked one out within smelling range while you were drooling there unconscious like an interactive Playboy.  You can't decide which situation is more fucked up, but either way, you're well and truly convinced English is sporting a trouser torpedo with your name on it.

Your fears of last night don’t seem so unfounded anymore; contrarily, they’ve taken an immediate U-turn into the territory of Definitely Founded and Insanely Probable, with a twist of How Does Do The Flirty Thing performed in a way that only Jake English could execute.

Sitting at the table, watching him eye-fuck you over a piece of buttered toast and listening to him legitimately offering to do for you “anything you want,” you couldn't resist dropping a hint about wanting his pork sword, just to see what he'd do.  He was kind of asking for you to do just that, after all; what was he expecting, to lay that offer on the table and have nothing come of it?  And yeah, perhaps you dropped more than a hint.  Perhaps you got downright nasty about it.  But it's hardly your fault if he didn't immediately rip the boxers right off of you and drop your ass onto his lap javelin.  But this is Jake.  Clumsy, adorably naive, amazingly goofy Jake.  He would never make a move like that without the influence of some mind-altering substances.

But he’s asking you to move in.

You’re not sure what universe spawned someone so unique as Jake, but where you come from, asking someone to move in and giving the kind of innuendo he’s been for the past twelve hours is definitely considered making a move.

...has he gotten his hands on some mind-altering substances?

Everything you know about him comes back eventually to the fact that he is the unfortunate straight man of your bromanship duo.  He loves Lara Croft almost as much as he loves his blue ladies.  You’re pretty sure he actually makes out with his posters sometimes.  And all you have to do to get him stuttering like a child caught with his pants down is to suggest homosexuality in any form, because his immediate responses revolve around pointing out how much he’d like you if and only if you were a girl.  The Auto-Responder’s disturbing sexual innuendo makes him almost as pants-wettingly uncomfortable as the sweaty jungle wrestling matches with Brobot.  You know for a fact both of your lady friends have feelings for him, and even he isn’t ignorant enough to have missed out on that; in fact, you’re pretty sure his blue lady theme is a reflection of Jane and her text hue.  He’s probably been trying all along to test out this portable transportalizer with someone he knows can make it work, and once you’ve both got it down pat, he’s going to use it to visit Jane or maybe Roxy, or hell, maybe both, if they’re into that kind of thing.

But you’re the one he’s got here now, he’s taken the jeans jet for a test flight right in front of you while you were un-fucking-conscious, and he’s... kind of hitting on you.

No, not kind of.  He’s offering to do anything you want, and his voice is dropping to levels of sultry you didn’t think possible in another human.  He’s definitely hitting on you.  He’s doing it in a weird, headache-inducing way that is simultaneously frustrating and endearing, but he is hitting on you.

You think.  Maybe.  Perhaps you’re being paranoid again.

You know that he’s asking you to move in.

It’s everything you’ve wanted, and you have no idea what to do with it.  You have no idea if he even means it, let alone if he means it the way you want him to mean it.  Maybe he’s just being goofy-joke-around Jake and you’re blowing everything out of proportion, as usual.

He’s staring at you, though.  You know you’ve probably been thinking about this way too long, even though it’s only been about half a minute.  He’s biting at his lower lip in a way that makes you feel guiltier than you already felt about crushing on him so hard in the first place.

You try to speak, choke out a whole lot of nothing, clear your throat, and try again.  “I guess we could try it?”

"Alrighty!"  The immediacy of his response and the brightness of his grin throw you off all over again, and you're starting to get the idea that maybe you'll never actually get used to the notion of him possibly liking you.

All you can do is shake your head and mutter, "Wow."

He doesn't seem to hear you, jumping to his feet and clearing your empty plates with a balance you wouldn't have expected from him, given his clumsiness yesterday.  "I guess we'll both have to go to your place today so we can pack some clothes for you and bring them back in a timely fashion!"

The hissing of the water in the sink is such a domestic sound that it rams home the impact of what you've just agreed to.  Your mouth starts moving and you can't stop it.  "I'm gonna be straight-up with you dude, I did not expect this to happen today.  Or ever, actually."

"Holy mackerel, I know!" he practically squeals.  "Isn't it fantastic?"

He has his back to you as he scrubs away at the dishes, but you can still see the toothy grin over his shoulder.  You can't help but give a little smile yourself.

God, he is so cute.

"It's… pretty awesome, yeah."

He giggles, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die _giggles_ , and you're pretty sure there's no way you're imagining it now.  You've become so uncomfortable with your own thoughts that you resort to venting by attempting to shift the discomfort over to him.  Misery demands company, after all.  You kick your feet up to cross your ankles on his vacated chair, and at the noise, he glances over his shoulder at you.  His eyes go wide and lock on your body somewhere around the hem of your underwear, someplace that is definitely farther south than your face, and he fumbles whatever dish is in his hands.  It lands in the sink with a thump.  "You, erm… we, ah."  He tries to pick up the spatula and applies too much pressure, and it shoots out of his soapy fist and hits the backsplash.  You watch him in silence, allowing a smile to play about your closed mouth.  "We definitely should bring in your clothes today, for certain.  If you won't fit into mine, I'd say as much as we can carry is in order!"  He successfully grabs the spatula and aims a grin back at you.

You sit wordlessly and give him a knowing look that makes his grin falter until he squirms in place.  "Any reason you're so desperate to put my clothes on, English?"

He tries to clear his throat while talking, and his voice still comes out mousy.  "Not anything peculiar, no!  Don’t be silly, Strider.  It's just that…"  His gaze keeps trying to migrate back down to your legs.  "I mean, after all, for you to go the rest of your days dressed only in your jammies would hardly be appropriate, even between two comfortable bros such as ourselves."

You smirk and pick up the nearly empty container of orange juice.  "Right."

"Yes!  Right!"  He whips his sight away from you and resumes scrubbing the dishes so hard it might be considered felony cruelty to plasticware, and his head moves in tiny shakes back and forth, a motion that you're pretty sure means he's internally kicking himself.  "Capital thing, being dressed.  Absolutely marvelous."

You take a casual swig of juice.  "We'll have to do something about the sleeping situation, though," you point out, wiping your chin.

Jake's rapid head-shaking halts abruptly, and he stammers out, "Oh!  Well, I- I suppose you can take the bed for now.  I'll simply put in an order for another mattress with my next air delivery of groceries and such supplies!  I do suppose it would be more efficient to fashion a bed frame myself, though, seeing as I have ample supply of young wood to carve and it should prove quite sturdy—"

“Jake.”

“Yes, Strider!”

His voice is far too chipper and his smile far too shiny, but you don’t point it out.  “I’m not okay with you sleeping on the floor of your own house indefinitely.”

"Oh I'm perfectly fine with it!" he insists, sticking the last of the dishes into the drying rack and turning off the water at last.  He picks up a towel and wrings his hands while rambling about how best to go about making a bed frame, and you interrupt with a suggestion that you're not entirely sure you mean, mainly just to see his reaction.

"We could share the bed."

He stops cold and stares at you, and keeps staring, long enough that you become aware of how very loud the jungle creature sounds are that surround the house, and in the chatter outside compared to the silence in front of you, you start to feel guilty.  You crack your neck and pick yourself up out of your chair collection.  "If you're chill with that.  Until the new one arrives."

His face is going a shade of red that you've only seen in anime.  His mouth gapes repeatedly like the gulls around your apartment, except no sound comes out.  Finally, he swallows hard and pushes out an, "Oh."  He's taking too long to think about this, oh shit it's getting awkward, you shouldn't have asked that, shit you think you might've actually meant it, you don't know what you'll do if he says no.  He turns his sight to you and meets your eyes over the top of your shades, and his face softens.  "If, um.  Would you… mind?  I mean, it's big enough, but…"

Yeah you really shouldn't have asked, he's looking for an out, fuck.  Your stomach drops.  "I just want you to be comfortable, bro.  If sharing a bed with me crosses that line of comfort, then you're not obligated to agree.  It's cool."

He nods slowly, no longer able to look at your face.  "Well… if I were to say yes?"

You shrug hopelessly, knowing he won't.  "I'm the one who suggested it, man, of course I'm fine with it."

"Then, sure!"

You watch his face, his body language, trying to discern if he's serious, but the toothy grin is back and you're… pretty sure he is.  "Yeah?"

"Of course!  If you want to, absolutely!"

You're not sure how to respond to that because of course you _want_ to but in a way that involves sticking your face between his thighs and riding him like a pony and leaving long scratch welts down his back.  Platonically sharing sleeping space is hella awkward when you're not sure how much contact is acceptable, if any at all.  What if your foot bumps his or some shit?  Will he hit the roof if your hand brushes his side as you flop around trying to keep contained in a personal bubble?  Would you guys resort to keeping a pillow barrier between you?

Or what if you end up spooning him in your sleep?  Or him, to you?

Oh God this is stupid, why did you do this.

He seems oblivious, swinging his arms back and forth and grinning so widely you're sure his bottom jaw will come unhinged.  "Excellent idea, Strider!  That settles that, then!"

Yeah, excellent idea, you colossal fuckwit.  "Awesome."

He hops forward and suddenly his swinging arms sail over your shoulders, pulling you against him and clenching tight around you.  Your spine goes as rigid as one of your swords, even as one hand glides down and presses into the small of your back, the other settling around your shoulder blades.  He squeezes your frame, letting out a small squeak and proclaiming, "This is great!"

You can't think, you can barely breathe, Jake's arms are around you and he's doing it on purpose, he's touching you and enjoying it, holy shit.  He's grabbing fistfuls of your shirt and the bulky form of his chest is crushed against your slimmer figure, his hand on your back pressing your slender stomach into the rippling folds of his own, the square tip of his chin digging into your shoulder.  You hadn't realized before, but he's shorter than you, just enough that when you realize you ought to reciprocate and you slide your chin over the mass of his trapezius, you have to dip your head down to tuck it against him.  You remember how to make your arms move and raise them to wind around him, settling into the curve of his waist and the sharp bone of his hip, and _holy shit you're touching Jake English, you have your arms around him and he's holding you_ , and damn does it ever feel amazing.  Your hands start to wander, slowly moving up his back and rubbing gentle patterns over his muscles as you relax in his grip.  He makes a contented hum and nestles tighter against you, clutching you like he'll never see you again.

Your hands slide up his sides and knead under his arms before winding around him and gripping as much of him as you can at once.  He doesn't feel like you imagined he would.  Dream-Jake is taller and his figure therefore stretched out more, his muscles hard and unforgiving.  Real Jake is soft and supple, despite his well-developed form.  You can squeeze him and his flesh yields in your grasp.  His hips are wider than you'd thought but they're perfect for him, perfect for supporting the glorious ass you've caught so many glimpses of on webcam and peeking out from under his shirttails yesterday, now only inches away from your hands.  His rump is so amazing it has its own musical score — you swear you can hear the Hallelujah Chorus — and you wonder if it's as plush and pliant as the rest of him.  It's within groping range.  You could do it.  Sneak attack double-palm the booty.  You'd be out of slapping distance, one butt-squeeze higher, before he'd even have time to register what you were doing.

But that's kind of incredibly awful and he's your best friend and, oh right, he might actually be interested in you.  Copping a quick and dirty feel would be a major setback in pretty much every way in addition to being immensely unsatisfying in the long run.

It occurs to you that he's been hugging you a pretty long time.

Maybe a booty grab wouldn't go over so badly after all.

Nah, better not.

You move your hands up and down his sides again, applying a bit more pressure now so you can feel his muscles moving under your touch.  This seems to prompt him because his fingers dig into you and rub slowly back and forth, tugging your shirt across your back.  It feels like lightning under your skin and you're struggling not to shiver against him, and something snaps in you and you realize this is your first hug, this is the first time anyone has intentionally initiated contact with you, the first time anyone has ever touched you at all really, and it's Jake doing it, and the sparks of sensation short-circuit your brain and it turns to mush.

There's a sudden pressure against the front of your pants, and then the realization jolts you back to your senses — you're not wearing pants, the pressure is coming from your body.  And you're glued to Jake's front.  If you can feel him, he can feel you.

Jesus fucking Christ, no, karma is not going to pull a literal reacharound on you.

You inch your hips back just enough that you can't feel him pressed against you, and Jake seems to take it as the hint to pull back because he gives your ribcage one final squeeze and draws his head back.  You start to withdraw but realize he hasn't let go of you, so you end up moving just enough to make eye contact, though it's impaired by your glasses.

You can feel his heart pounding against your chest, and you're aware of your own pulse thundering in your ears.  He's clearly struggling to keep his face composed and blank, but you still can't be sure what exactly he's hiding.

Actually, you're pretty sure you can.  Not even taking into account everything else you've witnessed from him, why else would he grab you so tightly and hold onto you for so long?

He swallows hard and lets his eyes flick up and down your face.  "Cripes," he breathes.  "Did you eat a volcano or something?"

You have no earthly idea what the fuck that's supposed to mean, so you just clear your throat.

He explains, "You're awfully warm."

So is he, and you're sure you're blushing up a storm, but you try to ignore that.  "Well, uh.  It's… pretty warm here, isn't it?  Living in a tropical jungle next to a volcano or whatever.  Maybe I ate your volcano.  No shit, I mean—" The word evokes imagery of a part of his anatomy that could spew a viscous substance, a part of his anatomy you would gladly swallow, and even though you're sure you're just being stupid and no way would his mind have taken the same leap as yours, you seek to correct yourself anyway.  "I mean like.  Maybe I'm just warmer than you because you're used to the volcano and now I've eaten it and it's too hot for me to handle, or whatever."

He chuckles.  His gaze bores into yours in a way that makes you think he's trying to see past your glasses, but you're glad he can't.

"I guess staying in my boxers is a good idea then, right?"  His face starts to go pink, and you feel like an even bigger idiot, and elaborate, "I mean, just imagine how much hotter I'd be with clothes.  Oh shit, no, I mean..."  You scrunch your eyes shut.  “Fuck.”

Nothing is coming out properly at all anymore.

He doesn't seem as vicariously embarrassed as you are for yourself, though, because his arms around you tighten slightly and make your eyes pop back open.  He murmurs, "You'd be burning up."

"Yes," you respond absently.  Your hands on his hips are starting to feel weird.  "Temperature wise.  Not in any other ways the word hot could be interpreted.  That is what I meant."

Jake glances away from your face.  "W-well, that is to say," he stutters, and his hands fist around your shirt.  "It's not like you're not attractive.  Because you are, but… we were talking strictly about temperature, yes?"

"Right," you agree instantly, "yes we— wait…"  Your brain stalls out like an engine in water.  Did he just say…?  No.  No he could not have.  "What?"

"What?"

His echo stuns you into silence.  You feel like you're choking, even more uncomfortable now than when he'd heard you say he tickles your fancy.  You know you didn't get out of that one scot free, he'd just let it go, and he's going to bring it back.  Maybe that's what he's doing now.

He drops his head on your shoulder and lets out an exasperated sound, pulling you back into him again.  Your downstairs problem hasn't gone away, and you dart a hand between you to make a split-second rearrangement, replacing your hand on his hip and hoping he doesn't feel shit.  Or that if he does, he has the grace to not point it out like a hapless infant.

He twists his head to bury his mouth and nose in your neck, and your back tenses up all over again.  He sighs deeply, and the heat that blooms against your skin is too much to bear.  You pat him on the back.  "You okay, bro?"

"No."  He lifts his head to bump his cheek against yours and leaves it there, pressing his face to you and sighing again.

Okay, enough is enough.  "Dude."  You try to pull back, and he either doesn't realize, or intentionally doesn't let you, because his grip doesn't let up.  "If this is weird, you can say so.  I won't be offended or anything."

"No!" he cuts in, momentarily squeezing you tighter, "no no, that's not it at all."

"Because seriously, I've been living by myself all this time, it's no skin off my nose.  If we're just goofing around and being hypothetical, it's okay.  Just… say so before I get too invested."

"It's not weird, Strider."  His hands slowly rub up and down your back, and you can't help but relax into them.  "Do you think it's weird?"

You shake your head as best you can with his cheek pressed against you.  "Not at all, man.  Sudden, yeah, but not unwanted.  I mean weird.  Not weird.  Fuck."

He chuckles, and you suddenly want to slap him for laughing at your Freudian slip.

You don't.  "You just seem like you're really worked up about something, and I don't want to push you into anything you don't want to get into.  So if you're having second thoughts, it's okay.  I wouldn't blame you if you are."

"Dirk."  He nuzzles his nose against your steadily warming cheek.  "I offered.  And I'm serious.  It's okay."

You can't make your brain do the thinking thing.  "Okay."

"It's just… oh cripes."  He clears his throat, and a rock drops in your stomach because this is it, you don't even know what _it_ is but this is it, you're standing at the edge of a precipice and he's about to push and you don't know what's at the bottom and it terrifies you.  "Did you mean what you said earlier?"

You said a lot of things earlier, and you have no idea to which one he is referring.

"I mean… the thing I pretended to not hear."

Oh, that thing.  Shit.  "And you did that because you're a great guy and the best friend."  The urgency of your tone humiliates you further, and you're getting quite desperate for him to not talk, just lead you back into the jungle and let you go home where you can fall over and not get up.  Maybe Cal will have a ripe and juicy "I told you this was a shitty idea" for you to roll around in.  Jake's hands freeze mid-caress on your back, and you remember that you're having trouble remembering that you're not being crazy and you have no need to be so damn defensive because _he's been dropping cannon fire hints that he probably wants to bone the crap out of you_.  "Unless… it's okay that you heard?"

Abruptly, he pulls away from you, and somehow he ends up taking your hands in his and holding them between you like a forcefield that's supposed to keep the awkward out.  "I just want to know if it's true.  That I…"  He's turning a magnificent shade of red.  "Tickle your fancy?"

You can sort of see your reflection in his glasses, and you're even redder than he is.  Dammit.  You try to remind yourself that it's okay to open up, but you can't turn off the switch in your head that tells you to not give up anything.  You can't come out and tell him unless you know it'll go over well.  "Would saying yes make this awkward?"

His mouth is flapping wordlessly again.  He swallows hard on nothing and coughs.  "Well.  Well, I, um… no.  That is, if, well…"

You think you might explode if he doesn't spit it out and quit choking on it.  "Well what?"

He shrugs violently as he talks, jiggling your hands between you.  "Well I don't know, is it a yes?"

 _Yes.  Yes, goddamn it, yes._  But you can't make the word come out, not without your certainty.  "Is yes okay?"

He looks like he might strangle you if you don't give him a clear answer.  "Yes is okay."

"Then…"  You take a deep breath to steel yourself, ignore as hard as you can that he's watching your face, tune out the part of your brain that's screaming at you to betray nothing.  "Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank Ali and her friend for the sausage thing, I can take no credit for that one.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cowriter [Ali](http://valkyrienix.tumblr.com) is at work p much all day today, so I have to post this without her.
> 
> INTENSE SEPARATION ANXIETY
> 
> WADES INTO THE DEEP END
> 
> I'M DOING IT I'M DOING THE THING

You don’t know what to say.  You just stand there for a few minutes staring at him in disbelief.  It had taken all of your guts to ask him how he felt and by God you had to wrangle it out of him as if it were a beast to capture!  You knew he was going to say yes after you felt... Well.  After you felt his Wee Willie Johnson pressing against you.  Although you’re pretty damned sure it’s anything but wee.

After feeling that, you just had to know.  You had to know if he reciprocated your feelings.  The yes was expected.  You knew it was coming.  What else could he say?  He could have lied, and said no, but some things Dirk just can’t lie about.  You’ve learned that about him over the few years since you’ve met him.  He stumbles awkwardly over his words and makes more ironic references than is probably normal.

You expected it, yes.

But that doesn’t take away from the shock that hits your chest as the word slips from his tongue.

“Holy smokes...” is the only thing you can say, and it comes out in a breath, barely audible. Dirk looks away and reaches under his glasses to rub his eyes.  He looks horrified that he admitted to it.  The look on his face might even be akin to terror, and your heart twists inside you.  You think you should hug him again.  Would that be a step too far?

No, you don’t think so.

Gently, you wrap your arms around him again, and then give a tight squeeze before resting your head on his chest.  His body stiffens immediately, not having expected your embrace.  That doesn’t deter you though, and you just hold him there, listening to his heart thump loudly against his chest.  It’s practically racing, and you have to smile a little.

“Thought I was the only one, there, Strider,” you say finally.

You notice he relaxes, and he’s hugging you back tightly, his hands grabbing at your shirt, clinging.  He laughs a little, but there’s an almost sad ring to it.  “You what?”

“I uh...”  You’re blushing again. “I thought I was the only one who... you know...”

“No I do not know.”  His voice is grave.  “I thought you were the unfortunate straight man and I was the lone queer in the middle of nowhere.”

And now you’re a tomato.  He could probably poke your cheek and you’d burst.  You’ve never been this red before.  “Well.  I _thought_ I was straight.”

“That makes two of us.”

A laugh bubbles up from your mouth, and you’re hugging him tighter.  He’s chuckling slightly, too, and you can hear the rumble of his laughter in his chest.  You both just sit there for a moment, listening to each other’s breathing, comfortably silent, before you both realize you’ve been holding each other longer than is really necessary. You both let go at the same time, awkwardly shifting a few steps back.

“So...” you manage to cough out.

“So,” he says.

“We’ll need to go to your place. To pack,” you say, “If you’re still planning on moving in, that is.”

“Yeah.”

There’s silence again.  You’re at a loss for words.  Again.  Your mind, however, is a swirling ball of chaos.  Thoughts are cascading upon you, one after the other, and you’re not sure if you’re capable of forming these thoughts into a coherent sentence.  You want to ask him so many things, to _know_ how long he’s felt this way, to _see_ what the dickens he sees in _you_ of all people.  Why would he even develop feelings for you, of all people?  Didn’t he ever have feelings for the girls?  Weren’t you just worried about him and Roxy?  They’re thick as thieves, after all.

You open your mouth to ask him at least one of these questions, but all that happens out of you is, “I’ll pack a lunch for when we go.”  He nods, and you turn and hurriedly start pulling things out again.  “How do turkey sandwiches sound?”

“Great.”

“Perfect.”  You begin to make the sandwiches, pulling out bread and meat and lettuce and everything you can think of.

“I’ll just... get my jeans then, I guess,” he says.

“Yeah...”  You hear him begin to walk away, and a question finally crashes through the ocean of thought in your mind and slips from your mouth.  “Dirk, where are we now?”

“In your house still.”

You quite nearly turn around and smack him.  “No!  I mean us!  Like...”  You start to fumble for words again.  “Where the devil do we stand now?!”

“Um.”  He fidgets in place, one hand on the stair banister, grinding his bare foot against the floor.  His face is pointed away from you, but you can’t be sure if he’s looking at you because of those stupid shades.  “Wherever you want us to.  That’s kind of the way it’s been all along.  For me, anyway.”

“Perhaps... dating?” you say, very quietly.  You’re not sure what he’ll think of this, or what he’ll say.  It took all the courage you had to say it.

He looks at you funny, like he can’t believe you’re asking this, and then says, “Okay.”

“Okay,” you say too, and you go back to making sandwiches.  He stands there, watching you, drilling holes into your back with his eyes.  You don’t know what else to say.  Wasn’t this supposed to be more romantic?  You’ve watched stuff like this in all the movies, read it in all the books.  You’re supposed to kiss now, aren’t you?  Show your hidden passion finally? You certainly were able to in your dream, but why not now?  Why is it that only dreams take away your inhibitions?

“Jake.”

His voice cuts through your thoughts like that samurai sword he religiously carries around with him.

“Yes?”

“Why are you attracted to me?”

The question is flat, and you almost shrug, then realize that would be pretty stupid and insulting.  Instead you just sort of stand there with your mouth open.

“Since we both thought you were straight, that must’ve meant it should’ve taken an enormous push to make you realize you like me.  Right?”  You half-shrug, half-nod, still not sure what to say.  Why is he asking this?  “Did you just wake up this morning with a thirsty hankering for your best bro’s bod?”

You allow yourself a small snort at his wording, then push your glasses up your nose and admit with eyebrows raised in hopelessness, “Pretty much.”

You’re not sure how you expected him to react, but it certainly wasn’t for him to go strangely silent and lean heavily on the banister, a soft noise of confusion escaping his throat.  He stares at the stairs for a moment, then slowly turns his face up to yours, and you almost feel like you should look away because suddenly his expression is so raw and uncertain you don’t know what to do.

“Why?”

A fraction of your heart breaks off.  Dirk’s voice is quiet, vulnerable.  You’ve never heard him sound like that before.  Ever.  He’s always behind the shades, behind the mask.  The only time you’ve ever seen him fully was in that dream, and that hardly counts.  After all, perhaps the real Strider isn’t like that at all.  Yet, you know inside he’s constantly hurting, constantly needing to be reached out to, but won’t let anyone come so close as a mile to his heart.  Seeing the mask vanish right in front of you leaves you almost as terrified as you’re sure he is.

“What do you mean?” you begin, your voice light, “It’s not as though you can’t realize how attractive you are.”

“I can’t say I’ve actually thought about it that much.”  There’s something in his tone that says perhaps he has, and has concluded that he isn’t at all.

“Well, Strider,” you say, and you paste a grin on your face for his sake, “you’ve definitely got ‘the stuff,’ as they say.”

He snorts.  Actually snorts.  You’ve never heard a noise like that come from him.  He’s always giving you some cool reaction, but here you have a something outside of the norm.  “Right.  I’m like.  Weirdly skinny.  And my hands are huge.  And who the hell has orange eyes anyway?”  The desperation in his voice rises slowly with each word.  “And that’s just my physical appearance.  I pretty much torment you every chance I get.  I gave you a robot that could _kill_ you to fight with you.  Jesus Christ, and the stupid Auto-Responder?  I basically created him to pick on you.  Keep you on your toes.  Or whatever!  Because I can’t get close to people, _especially_ not you!  Because if I actually fell for you, then...”  He stops, his breath heavy, and gives you this look, and you can see through the glasses that his eyes are huge and frightened.  His voice cracks.  “Then... fuck.”

All you can do is stare at him.  You feel small, compared to this whirlwind of emotions pouring forth from him, unbidden.  You’ve never seen Dirk like this, and you think maybe it’s because in confessing his feelings for you and admitting to himself that they’re real, he’s done just what he was trying not to do.  Perhaps that’s a bit assuming of you, but you need to know now.  “Have you?” you say as gently as possible.

“Have I what?”

“Fallen, that is... for me.”

He laughs, but it takes you a moment to recognize the sound because it’s not like his usual laugh where it seems like he might be slightly amused but is probably just humoring you.  It’s not that tiny chuckle.  It’s a full on laugh, and it sounds like a mixture of bitterness and legitimate amusement.  “Well, you broke through every single one of my defenses.  Here I am.  In my underwear.”  He makes a sweeping gesture to his boxers.  “How could I not? Really?”

“I don’t see what you see in me, to be honest. I’m just Jake English,” you smile slightly, almost guiltily.

“You’re wonderful.”  The sincerity in his voice is tangible but you can’t grasp at why.

You just shake your head.  “In what way?” you ask dryly.  “I’m nothing too spiffy.  Just... average.  I’m not even eye-catching.”

“God, yes you are.”  You start to protest, but he goes on, carefully stepping toward you as he speaks.  “You’re all ripped and stuff.  And you seriously have the cutest mouth.”  You blush.  “And lord help me when you turn around, because I can’t stop staring.”

“What?” you say, surprised, “My bottom?”

“No,” he replies, sarcasm dripping from his tongue, and he grips the counter as he steps close enough to lean on it.  “The other thing that protrudes nicely when you turn around.”  You look at him quizzically, and he lets out a sound of exasperation.  “Yes, your ass.”

“Oh.”

“Your shorts don’t help your case.”

Heat floods your cheeks, and you have to look away.  “I suppose not.”

“And you’re a really cool guy.  You’re so genuine about everything.  It’s like dishonesty isn’t a thing that even occurs to you.”

“Well it would be ungentlemanly of me to lie...” you say, fidgeting with a button on your jacket.  “It’s not in an adventurer’s code of honor.”

His lips turn upward in an appreciative smile.  “And your vocabulary is precious.”

“My vocabulary?  I don’t know what the devil you mean by that.”  Do you speak funny?  It’s how you were raised...

“Case in point.”  He gives you a pointed look.

“I suppose I _do_ lean towards the old fashioned.”  You grin sheepishly up at him.

He’s turned bright red again and he’s staring at you intensely.  You know he is.  “And...”

“And...?”

“Every time you open your mouth I want to grab you by the face and kiss you.” He states this slowly, enunciating every word almost painfully.  You notice how close to you he’s come, inches from you even and slowly but surely leaning in.

You swallow hard.  “Kiss me?” you say in a quiet voice.

“Kiss you.”  His mouth is now centimeters from yours.  You can feel his hot breath, pick out every individual freckle on his face, see right through the glasses into the flames of his eyes.  He’s going to kiss you.  Right here.  Right now.  The thought of his mouth on yours is enticing, and your mind flutters to how his kiss had felt in the dream you had.  You want desperately to feel Dirk’s hands on your body, their heat.  You wonder if they’re as demanding as they are in your dream.

Oh God.

Your dream.

Suddenly you realize that this situation could escalate very quickly.  You’re suddenly terrified.  You’ve never had human contact before like that ever.  Only in your dreams, and everyone knows that dreams are only a pale shadow of real life.  So what would him touching you _really_ be like?  Would it be five times more intense?

Holy crap on toast there is no way you can do this, not so soon, no can do, nope nope nope.

His nose brushes your cheek, and you exclaim, “Oh, I nearly forgot the sandwiches,” and you whip around and start making them again.  There’s a sharp intake of breath from him, and then nothing.

“I’ll just... go grab my jeans, for ah... when we leave.”  His voice is strained.

“Right o!” you say with feigned enthusiasm, and slap a slice of turkey onto some bread.  You listen closely, and his footsteps finally fade away.  You exhale, and stop what you’re doing.  Staring listlessly at the sandwiches you’ve made without really seeing them, you try to breathe out the nerves that make your elbows shake.  God, do you want that kiss.  Bad.  Thought of it has your whole body tingling, like a rocket about to explode.  And you have the feeling that when you do get that kiss, your chest is going to be full of fireworks.

But cripes, you’re not even sure how you’re going to handle that kiss.  You want it so badly you’re kicking yourself for not going through with it, but you just couldn’t.  You don’t want to be like some virgin maid and faint on the spot.  Nor do you want to be some sex-craved freak.  Either one is a definite willy wilter.  What do you do?

 

==>

 

You sit on the end of Jake’s bed, the unyielding footboard cutting into the backs of your knees, and squeeze your fists around your soda-sticky jeans so hard your whitened knuckles shake.  Your jaw is clenched so tightly it makes your teeth numb, resisting the increasingly powerful urge to scream with wordless frustration.

You are an idiot.

Why the literal certifiable fuck are you making moves on the dude?  What on Troll Jegus’s good green Earth led you to believe that was okay?  You have no actual idea how long Jake has liked you, what kind of desires he has, or whether he wants to act on it at all.  All you know is that he’s asked you to date him (a phrasing so outdated and Jakeish it almost made you laugh), and that you smelled babymaking manjuice that didn’t belong to you in the room this morning.  The scent still lingers faintly.  You assume it’s coming from the sleeping bag, still left out and partially open.

Now you understand why he was sitting on it instead of lying in it when you awoke.

For some reason, you find this hilarious.

The hilarity overtakes the terror and anxiety pounding through your system and tips them over the scale into more hilarity, and you’re snorting quietly into your shoulder.  His hyped-up demeanor, his squeaky exclamations, his fists stuffing your shirt up his throat... and that smell.  He must have been the most nervous kid in the world.  So much more nervous than you are now.  He must’ve been sweating right out of his sperm-filled sleeping bag.

You snort so hard you spit a little.

Sperm-filled sleeping bag is suddenly the funniest fucking thing in the world.

Your head falls forward and you giggle-snort to yourself because _sperm-filled sleeping bag_ and his goofy guilty-as-fuck grin, and you’ve flecked the front of your shirt with spit spray, and that’s almost as funny as dick spray, and now you can’t stop laughing, _dick spray_ , oh God you really can’t stop laughing.

You keel back on the bed and roll to the side and laugh into the comforter.  Your glasses cut into your face, and you pull them off to find tears streaming down your nose, and that somehow makes it _even funnier_ and you’re pretty sure your laugh box is broken now, because this is just stupid.

You allow yourself to laugh it out, because it’s actually easing your nerves quite a lot, and once you find you can breathe again without giggling, you sit back up and wipe the tears off your face with your stank jeans.  You decide to just leave them.  It’s even hotter at your place than it is here on the Lost island, so no way in hell do you want to crawl into sticky black skinny jeans, and if you’re moving in anyway, you might as well leave them with Jake’s clothes for his next wash.

Oh, shit.

You’re moving in.

You bury your face in your palms and try to breathe, try to calm yourself down.  You acquiesce that he’s probably infinitely more nervous than you are, impossible as that may seem, and that you’re both treading in completely new and uncertain territory.  The great vast unknown of it all is probably a thrill to his inner Lara Croft.  You stare through your fingers at the blue lady posters that he uses as wallpaper, and you wonder why the hell he chose you when he could’ve had Jane, or Foxy Roxy, and he knows it.

You try to remind yourself that you’re the one who’s here now, and that’s what counts.

You don’t convince yourself.

You can’t really get a good enough breath to calm down, and you blame it on the unbelievable humidity, with a little fault from Eau de Sperm-Filled Sleeping Bag.

You snort again and spray your palms with spittle.

Your breath rushes out in a heavy sigh, and you pick yourself up from the bed and head back down the stairs, resolving to grab your katana from where you’ve left it beside the exit when you leave.

Jake looks up when you descend into his line of sight, then double-takes and stares at you, and you can’t quite tell why his face is doing what it’s doing, but he looks like you’ve grown a large unsightly growth between your eyes.  You decide to ignore this, because it’s probably just nerves again, and also because you must’ve spent a lot longer laughing to yourself than you thought because the kitchen is hella bright now when it wasn’t before.  You mumble an explanation about how you might as well leave your soiled clothes here if you’re just going to move in anyway, and he murmurs his recollection of that tidbit and flushes pink around the ears in a way that makes you think he might be feeling a bit ill.

He tells you what he’s made for lunch, but you don’t register it.  “Huh?”

His forgiving smile almost snaps you back out of your head and into the moment, but not quite.  “I said I added mayonnaise.  Is that okay?”

You shrug.  “Never had the egg paste shit, couldn’t tell you.”

“Oh.”  He stares down at the sandwiches he’s already placed in cute little plastic baggies.  “Well... would you like to try?”

“Uh...”  You don’t really care.  “Sure, I guess.  Might as well.”

“Alrighty then.  Sit tight,” he requests, reaching toward the jar and unscrewing the light blue lid.  Then, to your mild astonishment, he sticks a finger into the jar and withdraws a tiny dollop attached to his fingertip.  You suddenly remember he hasn’t washed his hands that you’ve seen yet today, wonder if cleaning the dishes qualifies as enough bacterial control, and realize the slightly-transparent glob of gooey off-white gunk on his finger closely resembles something else extremely hilarious.  Your live-wired brain supplies an image of a sleeping bag stuffed with mayonnaise, like some sort of hellishly disgusting cannoli.

You have severe trouble containing your laughter.

Perhaps he notices the strange face you’re pulling to contain the spit-filled giggles that are threatening to burst from you, because he says, “You don’t have to, Strider, it’s quite all right.  I can make another one if you’re uncertain.”

“Naw,” you say, forcing your mouth to move in a way that’s not hysterical laughter, “it’s cool.”  You wave his hand toward you.  “Bring ‘er here.”

He gulps, and cautiously, he moves his finger to your lips.  He tries to focus intently on his fingertip, but your gaze captures his, and he stares right into your eyes as you draw his finger into your mouth and gently suck it clean.  It’s tangy and a little sweet, and you’re not that fond of the condiment as it stands, but maybe it’ll be better on the sandwich.  Adding to the weird flavor is the fact that you can still taste a hint of lemon Ajax on his finger, and beneath it all, the salt of his skin.

His breathing has gotten heavy and you’re pretty sure you’re going to make him spontaneously combust.  You give his fingertip one final sweep of the tongue for good measure, and release him, smacking your lips appreciatively.

He stammers out something that resembles an inquiry as to what you thought.  You shrug.  “S’alright.  Definitely a new flavor for me.  Guess we’ll see how it works out once there’s meat to go along with it.”

The innuendo is intentional, and it achieves the desired effect of making him force out a nervous giggle and turn away to find a lunch box.  You try to control your own vitals back down to a point of normalcy.  Just because you two are “together” now or whatever, doesn’t mean anything has to really change between you.  And just because you’ve got no choice but to let him pull the strings at his own pace, doesn’t mean you can’t fluster the hell out of him in the meanwhile.  It’s frustrating and unnerving for you, but he chose you above all other available options that should’ve interested him more, and you command yourself to be content with it and not nitpick.

“So,” you say as he packs the sandwiches along with a few whole fruits and vegetables from the fridge, “what did you want to do at my place?  Just pack and get it done?”

The redness starts to fade from his ears and cheeks as he talks.  “Oh, well!  I do very much want to explore these underwater ruins you’ve teased my sense of adventure talking about.  I never have gotten to explore the depths of the ocean before!”

You nod to yourself.  His ocean is rendered pretty inaccessible by capricorns, and there isn’t really a decent point of entry anyway.

“So would you mind terribly if we were to go exploring first, and then return to pack and eat?”

“Sure.  I’ve got a few extra oxygen tanks, so I’m sure I can rig one up for you.”  He grins at you over his shoulder, and it feels casual again, like there’s nothing to worry about.  Because there’s not, you remind yourself.  You still aren’t so sure.  “I’ll warn you though, ocean water is really sticky.  So we might want to try to shower after we get back, and I don’t exactly have a source of fresh water.  It’s gotta go through my filtration system first, and that takes a while.  Now you know why my showers take forever.”  He chuckles at that.  “And if we’re doing two...”

He nods thoughtfully, zipping up the thermal lunch box.  “Yes, that’s a fair point... I’m not particularly comfortable to be stuck in it.”  You’re hoping he’ll suggest sharing a shower, but instead, he says, “Perhaps we’ll save exploring for last, then?  So that we might shower upon our return here to my well water.”

That could still turn into a tag-team shower.  You shrug a nonchalant shoulder.  “Whatever you want, man.”

He seems satisfied with the state of your lunches and slaps his hands against his thighs in a gesture of finality.  “Well then!  I suppose I had best change into my trunks, eh?”

“Unless you want to swim in your underwear.  Or naked.”  Please say naked.

He laughs and heads past you and up the stairs.

Well, that was pointless.

What is not pointless is the way his delectable cheeks jiggle as he bounces up the staircase.  God, you could bite that ass like an apple.

You decide to poke around his kitchen while he’s changing, because he has to do it by hand and not via wardrobifier the easy way like you do, so you have a little time to kill, and you should probably familiarize yourself with the layout since you’re about to make this place your home anyhow.  You acquaint yourself with the positions of the plates, the silverware, and the contents of the fridge, and are starting to examine window and door placement to strategize convenient points of exit and cover should anything attack, when he thunders back down the stairs.

And what he’s wearing captivates your undivided attention.

You’re aware that you’re staring right at his crotch, but that’s not what you’re looking at.

His trunks are patterned with skulls.

You almost crack up, but it’s not as funny as sperm-filled sleeping bag and since that’s what has set the bar for your sense of humor today, you’re left more stunned than amused.  He stuffs his hands in his pockets, effectively bringing you back to your senses, and you realize you’ve been staring googly-eyed at his dick this entire time.

The laughter building in you almost breaks free, but it would sound like you’re laughing at his choice of swimwear and that would make for a very rude first date, so you dam it back.  “You seriously have skulls on your swim trunks.”

“Of course!”  He holds his arms out in a display of what-did-you-expect.

The dam starts cracking, and your face breaks into an uncontrollable grin.  “Adorable.”

“Hell’s bells!” he fumes, his hands curling into frustrated fists, chest puffing out, and the dam cracks further, releasing a snort from your throat.  “Rugged, Dirk!   _Rugged!”_

You nod slowly, sarcastically.  “Incredibly rugged.”

He doesn’t catch on.  “Precisely!”  He looks up and down your form.  “And what about you?”  You inform him that you’re very adorable before you can hear that he has more to say, and he’s inquiring what you intend to wear in the water.

You trip over your response.  “I’ve got trunks at home, dude.”

“And they are designed how?”

“Orange.  Just orange.”

He makes a face of comprehension.  “Of course they are.”

“And of course yours would be designed reminiscent of a scene chick’s stockings.”

His face falls into a countenance of indignation, and he cries, “Pardon me!  Do these _look_ like the hosiery typical to a that of a disgruntled adolescent?”  He turns sideways to point his rear at you, and you mime shielding your eyes.

“Whoa!  Careful where you point that thing, English!”

He cocks his head to the side, scrunching his eyebrows.  “What the devilfucking dickens are you talking about?”

Your eyes are getting stuck in place, oh boy, if you don’t want this to get awkward you’d better look away.  You don’t.  “Not to sound too terribly antediluvian, but... dat ass.”

He follows your line of sight to his rump and rolls his eyes, facing forward again to break your gaze.  “For heaven’s sake, Dirk, you’re turning me in circles.  It’s just my bottom.  Nothing too special about it.”  You make a sound of disagreement, and he insists, “Phooey.  I’m sure yours looks fantastic in _your_ swim trunks.”  You don’t think so, because you don’t have much of an ass to speak of, so you reach for the lunch box and choose not to comment.  When you face him again, he’s still watching you, but his stare darts back up to your face from somewhere significantly lower.

His voice is a bit too breathy as he murmurs, “Let’s hurry up and be going, then.”  He turns on his heel and heads straight for the door, and you follow, grabbing your sword on the way out.

You indulge yourself with an extra moment to admire his swimwear.

Once the door is shut behind you and you turn to face the pumpkin jungle ahead, you find yourself squinting against the paralyzing assault of sunlight.  You don’t remember it being at all this bright yesterday.  Hopefully the shadows of the jungle will help protect your eyes.

Jake doesn’t seem bothered, offering to take the lunch box from you and following the crude path of his footprints when he’d run to meet you yesterday afternoon.  Fortunately, he’s not as dainty as you, nor as deft at picking his way cleanly through underbrush, so his point of entry in the woods is obvious to an eye as trained as yours.  In a way, you can appreciate the brilliance of leaving it in the forest; if the wrong people came looking for it, they could tear his house apart and be no closer to finding it.

You are sort of upset that your mind is so quick to jump to conclusions of ambush and combat, but only sort of.

The sun is a brutal slavedriver and the humidity is its bloodthirsty overseer, and in tandem, you can already feel the back of your shirt is soaked clean through.  Brightness or not, it’s definitely hotter today than it was yesterday.  Perhaps you just got lucky and missed the peak of heat by arriving in the afternoon.

Jake goes on a tirade about how much he’s going to love baking different things for you and he’d love to make you some pumpkin pies and pasties, but his pumpkins are always mysteriously going missing, and he swears if he ever lays hands on the one doing it he’ll clobber them good.  You suppress a chuckle, knowing full well who’s doing it.  If she hasn’t told him, who are you to spoil her fun?

He’s getting quite vehement about it, and you head him off with a comment about being hotter than sitting on the hinges of the gates of hell, and how it’s probably a good thing you’re not wearing jeans because holy dogshit, you’d probably pass out.  He glances at you over his shoulder, nowhere near your face, and quiets his rant with a semi-comprehensible remark about the humidity as his ears go red.

You enter the jungle, and you’re glad to find the foliage provides shelter for your eyes.  Still, you can’t help but point out how _bright_ the day is, hoping maybe it’s not just you.  He chuckles at you and says, “Maybe if you’d worn those silly glasses of yours, it wouldn’t be so odious, hm?”

You pause, feeling your stomach drop.

You’d pulled your shades off to laugh at sperm-filled sleeping bag **—**  God, that phrase sounds so stupid now **—**  and you’d just left them lying there on his bed like a tool, hadn’t you?  Of course you had.

Well.  That explains a lot.

“Yeah, I um... I’ve been feeling kind of bad about leaving the Auto-Responder at home, so I thought I’d leave those here as a backup, and bring him back with us.”

Jake pauses too, swiveling to match eyes with you, a smile pulling up a corner of his mouth.  “Much as I deride you about them, Strider, they really do look quite cool.  They can have a quite...”  He hesitates to gulp down nothing.  “Tantalizing... effect.  But just the same, I’m glad to have them out of your face for a change.  It’s jolly good to see your expressions.”  Your eyes widen, and he grins.  “Just like that.  You’re usually so detached, it’s a wonder I can understand you have any feelings at all.”

You let out a chuckle through your nose.  “That’s usually what I’m going for, yeah.  Though it clearly didn’t work too well, since... we’re.  Yeah.”

His grin softens into a kind smile.  “Together?”

It does weird things to your heart to hear it stated like that, weird things that make your face break into the stupidest grade-school grin.  “Yeah.”

“Your smile is awfully nice.”

You have no idea how to reply to that except with an even more sheepish and giddy smile, so you shake your head a little and slip past him, following the trail.  Thankfully, it doesn’t extend past a few feet, and on the other side of a tree so large you couldn’t fit your arms around it, your landing site is clear.  The dull metal object on the ground doesn’t attract much attention, but it stands out when you know what you’re looking for.

He tracks the few remaining feet to your goal and says, “Ah, there’s the doodad!”

You stand beside it and gesture toward him.   _Your move, English._


	5. Chapter 5

Ah.

Oh dear.

You stare at the device for a moment, look at Dirk, and then back at it again.

 _Cheese and fucking crackers_.  You have no idea how it works.  You pick it up, slowly, and stare at it some more.  How humiliating.  You built most parts of this half too, and you’re dumbfounded as to how the device is even operable.  You run a hand along its smooth surface, and with a sigh, you give up, and turn to Strider.

“Remind me as to how this works again?”

A cocky grin spreads across his face, and he saunters over to you.  He presses himself against the back of you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and resting his chin on your right one.  His hands snake down your arms, his fingers gently brushing against your skin, sending a shiver down your spine.  He finally stops at the device, and points to the center, a black pad.  “Well,” he begins, his voice low against your ear, “it’s just a handheld transportalizer.  If you put your hand on the pad there...” He taps it lightly with a finger. “...you and whatever you’re touching will go back to the home coordinates.”  A pause, in which you can feel his breath hitch a little.  “In other words, my place.”

“Oh,” you breathe.  You feel his face break into another smile.  That one smile he reserves specifically for when he’s tormenting the dickens out of you.  “So, we need to hold hands then?”

The smile becomes a partial frown, as if that thought had never occurred to him.  “I... guess so?”  You turn and look at him quizzically, because how could he not _know_ , but you’re instantaneously distracted by the proximity of his face.  Holy mother of mergatroid, his lips are so close to yours.  That unshared kiss still seems to linger in the air.  “It’s kind of dependent on what _you’re_ touching,” he explains, not looking at you.  “Otherwise it would take anything in contact with you. Like the ground. Or the planet.”  Sparks fly in his eyes, and you swear you can hear the cogs in his brain moving on how best to get at you now.  “So I guess you have to grab me.”

You bite your lip nervously, and look back down at the transportilizer.  “How so? Like lift you up?”

He chuckles.  “I think you just touching me should be fine.  Though you’re welcome to carry me bridal style if you want.”

Your face reddens a ridiculous amount, and you hope he doesn’t notice, although you’re sure he has.  You don’t think you have ever blushed so many times in one morning in your entire life.  Dirk gives you a pointed look and says, “You’re strong enough.  It would totally work.”

You stammer out something along the lines of you’re really not that strong, and hope that he understands the incoherent vomit of words you just managed to say.  He does, because suddenly his hands are trailing up your arms, slowly defining each muscle with his fingertips.  “Sure you are,” he breathes into your ear.

“I’m not so sure...”  Your breath hitches in your chest, making an audible hiccupping sound.  His fingers pause in their slow, upward trail for just a moment, and you hurriedly say, “I mean, I could carry you over my shoulder.  That doesn’t require much strength.”

“If you want, sure, I’ll be your potato sack.  I’m down.”  For frig’s flipping sake, Dirk, the imagery!  But he pauses, and suddenly his words are hesitant.  “Holding hands would work though.  Just so you know.”

You assess your options.  Part of you wants to hold his hand, like all those couples in the movies do before they go on some marvelous adventure.  It’s a sign of the support and love they hold for each other.  The other part of you wants to swing Dirk up in your arms like all the heroic men of your movies do to the damsels in distress.  Yet Dirk hardly counts as a damsel and rare is it that he’s ever in distress, if at all.  Still, you want to pick him up.  This part of you wants to carry Dirk both physically and emotionally.  You want to support him, odd as that sounds.  However, picking him up like a newly wedded bride wasn’t what you had in mind.  It would be more symbolic than anything...

Your mind continues to go in circles, until Dirk finally says, “I’m lighter than I look.  You’d do fine.  If you’d rather not worry about it, though, it’s cool.”

“Well...” you say, and your voice sounds like an unsure child asking their mother for some candy, “jump up.  I’ll... I’ll catch you, I suppose.”

His eyes widen considerably, and this just reaffirms the fact that wow you really like it when he doesn’t have his shades.  The orange is so warm and inviting, it almost melts your heart.  You desperately hope that he keeps them off around you more often.  You like getting lost in those eyes, even if they’re still shut to you.  You’ve only caught a glimpse of what was beyond their depths, when Dirk was explaining to you what a completely unattractive and horrible person he really is.  Which, you decided you would never believe because you seriously doubt that anyone who has ever seen a picture of Dirk would be turned off.  Freakish orange eyes, your arse.  You also feel like, even if Dirk likes to poke fun at you most times, he’s a true friend.  He’d be there for you in a heartbeat without so much as a second thought.

Well, you guess you’re a little more than friends now.

Boyfriends.

The thought of that makes you turn and smile at him from his vantage point on your shoulder, and he just stares at you for a moment before realizing, “You’re serious.”

“Deadly serious,” you reply matter of factly.  That’s it.  You’re doing this.

“Alright, cool,” he says, his nonchalance returning. He withdraws from holding you, circling around to stand in front of you now.  You hold your arms out, and you see the flush of red creeping up his neck.  You realize you managed to surprise him, and you can’t help but giggle slightly.  In a completely manly, and adventurer-like way, of course.  Let it not be heard that Jake English _giggles._

He comes forward tentatively, suddenly hesitant to touch you where before he had no qualms.  You open your arms a tad bit wider, trying to seem more welcoming.  Slowly, he wraps his arms around your neck, frowning faintly.  He seems to be calculating the physics of what he’s about to attempt.  “Jumping...” he murmurs.  “Right. Okay.”

“Go on then...” you say, suddenly nervous yourself.  He takes a deep breath and braces himself with his arms around your neck, hefting his legs up so that you can catch them.  For a split second, you’re terrified you won’t, but then realize who you are (an adventurer extraordinaire), and you manage to catch him easily.

“Gotcha!” you exclaim, grinning widely.

The blush that had been creeping up Dirk’s neck has now spread over his entire face, and he looks almost like a cherry, he’s so red.  “Yep,” he manages to say, “You certainly do.”

Your grin becomes somewhat sheepish, and you say, “So, now what, Strider?  Click my heels and think of home?”

That provokes a small laugh from him, and he replies, “One of us has to press the pad on this thing.”

You glance down at the device, which you are still managing to hold while carrying Dirk, and you almost snort.  “Well, might you do that?  My hands are a bit tied up here.”  It’s only then that realize your hands are practically centimeters from his ass, and you almost choke on your words.  Awkwardly you hand him the transportilizer, and he takes it with a knowing smile, like he understands exactly what you’re thinking right now pertaining to his behind.

He clamps onto your shoulder with one arm and rests the transportalizer on his lap.  “Hold on to your shorts,” he says, and he presses his palm to the pad.  You squeeze your eyes shut, but nothing changes.  You wait for a few seconds, but still feel nothing.  However, you don’t dare peek, no matter what.  Every good adventurer knows to keep their eyes shut when going through the space-time continuum.  Who knows what horrors you could glimpse on the trip through, or if perhaps your future might be spoiled for you in a snap?  You could go through a raging depression and contemplate suicide just from knowing, and you want to live a whole a lot longer, thanks.

You hear Dirk laugh, and he says, “You can open up, dude, we’re here.”  You’re about to finally open your eyes when he hurriedly adds on, “You might get kind of dizzy though.  It would be a good idea to put me down.”

You set him down, gently, and the warmth of his body leaving yours makes you want to cry.  But you don’t, and you open your eyes only to have a wave of nausea crash over you.  His room barely registers in your mind, and you almost topple over, looking wildly for Dirk’s form.  “Oh Jesus Christofer kringlefucker...” you curse out, clutching your head, “I need to sit.”

“Bed’s right over there, dude.”  You feel his hand on your back and he’s guiding you to a hazy, white form in the corner.  “I could explain a ton of crap about physics and matter displacement and magnetic fields or whatever, but it would probably make you puke at this point.  It’s not as bad if you have a full-sized transportilizer, or so I’ve read...”  He trails off, seeming to muse to himself about the mechanics of one.  You just quietly sit, hoping to dissuade your stomach from emptying itself in Dirk’s room, which won’t stop spinning.

He seems to sense your discomfort, because he says, “Don’t toss cookies on my bed, dude.”

You nod weakly, and say, “I won’t.  Just point out the loo for me, won’t you?”

He points towards a door across from the bed, and you can almost make it stay still for a moment.  “Over there.”

“Thanks.”  You breathe shallowly for a few minutes as he sits there kneading his fingers, and you focus on a pair of boxers on the floor until they’re staying quite still, and after another minute, you start to feel well enough to look around a bit and observe his room.  And holy moly, it’s a mess.  You don’t think you’ve ever seen so many colorful felt bottoms before, nor do you think have you ever seen more posters of horses.  Horse, horse, horse, Ben Stiller, swole horse-man, Rainbow Dash, horse.  You notice he’s also got quite the collection of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff merchandise, but you shouldn’t be surprised, really.  His brother did create the thing, didn’t he?  And Dirk does have that tattoo on his shoulder.

A variety of swords are scattered across the room, and you suppose he practices with them at points during the lonely days he spends here.  Some robotics are around, too, along with a bunch of music making instruments which you assume he uses quite often, as they’re markedly clear of the clutter that infests every horizontal surface of the room, including, now that you look around you at the smuppets on the covers, the bed.

And of course, there’s the infamous Lil’ Cal, sitting idly atop a stack of amplifiers in a corner, staring at you with those enormous blue, unblinking eyes.

You hurriedly look away.

“Ponies, eh?” you manage to say at last.

He looks almost embarrassed.  “Oh yeah.  Um.  Irony?”  His voice is a higher pitch than normal, and is it your imagination, or is he perspiring a bit?  “Yeah let’s go with irony.”

You snort.  “Oh don’t lie.”  He makes a face, and you pat his knee.  “Nice SBAHJ posters though.  I like those quite a lot.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.  And… is that a rocket board?”

You slowly get to your feet and edge towards it.  He’s right behind you, almost like he’s waiting to catch you if you fall.  A laugh escapes him though, and he replies with a chuckle and a “Yeah dude.”  Your steps are wobbly at best, and he quickly adds on,  “Don’t push yourself.  Take it easy.”

“I’m fine,” you grumble, even though you both know full well you’re not, “Don’t fuss.”  You reach out tentatively and run your fingers lightly over the edge of the board.  His eyes are glued to your hands.  You probably shouldn’t have touched it, but you couldn’t resist.

“It’s like riding a skateboard,” he says, sounding like he has to push his words out, “except you have the extra vertical dimension to contend with.”

“Well, I’ve never actually ridden a skateboard.”  You pause.  “Not correctly anywho.”

“It takes some practice.  And some insane balance.”

“None of which I have.”

He smiles slightly.

“Can we go for a ride on it, sometime?”  He looks at you like you’re off your rocker, and you grin.  “When I’m not about to hurl my guts up?”

“Sure,” he says, a coy smile on his face, “but you’ll have to hold on to me. Tight.  If you fall in the ocean, that’s on you.”

“Geronimo!” you say loudly, laughing and thrusting your arms upwards.  You regret this action immediately because suddenly you’re feeling even worse and you promptly go back to the bed and sit down.  He follows, with an expression of I’m-trying-really-hard-not-to-laugh-but-not-succeeding-particularly-well.

“So,” you say, pushing past your nausea, “Where are your swim trunks? Let me see ‘em!”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, as if he’d completely forgotten. “Let me put them on.” He walks over to what appears to be a wardrobe and presses a button, there’s a small flash, in which you glimpse **—**

Oh.

_Oh._

_Oh oh oh._

You must have said something, because Dirk turns to look at you, frowning.  You know for a fact that you’ve successfully managed to turn into a tomato because boy you did not expect to see what you just saw.

He looks at you funny, and then he seems to realize what probably just happened.  “I…” He frowns for a moment before continuing, as if unsure what to say.  “Sorry if you saw something.  It glitches sometimes.”

You shake your head and laugh nervously, “I didn’t see anything, not to worry, chap!”  You laugh again.  “Just… still feeling a little sick to my stomach is all!  But I suppose I’ll have to be getting used to that, right?  If we’re coming back here often?”  He starts to say it gets better as you grow accustomed to it, but you plow ahead to point out, “Unless you don’t plan on returning…”

It seems to finally dawn on him that he really is moving in with you and he sort of just stops.  “…Oh,” is all that comes out of his mouth, and he looks like he might fall over.  You start to stand when he finally continues.  “I hadn’t thought of that.  I guess I was so caught up about moving in I didn’t realize that meant leaving this place behind.”

“Well… we can come back if you want.” He nods, and together you say, “Like a vacation house.”  This causes you both to grin.

“Perfect,” you say, and you stand.  “Well I’m feeling dandy again.  Are you ready for a swim?”

He stares at you funny, still standing before the wardrobe doodad.  “I thought we were doing that last.”

“Oh right.”  Perhaps you’re a bit more addled still than you’d thought.  “That’s what I meant, of course!”

“Sure,” he says, “but it’s... kind of a drop though.  My apartment’s like fifty feet above the water.  I hope you can climb.”

You nod enthusiastically.  “I am an _adventurer_ , Strider.”

He rolls his eyes.  “How well can an adventurer climb metal poles when they’re wet with sticky seawater?”

“Oh.”

“No sweat, dude.  We can use the hoverboard to get back up.”

“Sounds like a plan!” you reply.  “Before we pack, why don’t you show me around a bit! Your room and everything.”

He shrugs and proceeds to show you around, and the various belongings he has.  You try not to question some things, particularly the fancy Santas, or the screen on the wall showing various half-horse, half-man figures in their birthday suits.  He also explains that if you see his rap bots, Squarewave and Sawtooth, to run like hell unless you feel you can rap better than shit.  You point out that you haven’t had the practice that he has, to which he responds it’s “more of a natural thing,” and avoids looking at you.  You decide to let it slide, because you have heard his raps, and they’re actually pretty flipping fantastic.  The tour of the single room ends with both of you sitting on the bed once more, as he goes on to gripe about how difficult it is to dissuade either bot from a rap and complain to himself about having even made them so one-track-minded in the first place.

“Well, a machine can only serve its designated purpose, after all,” you assure him, trying to sound helpful.

He huffs.  “Yeah, Sawtooth’s purpose is to hide for months at a time and then show up to blast rockets at drones from under his public masturbator trench coat, the Auto-Responder’s purpose is to fluster the shit out of you and drive me up a goddamn wall, and Squarewave’s purpose is to sneak up behind me when I’m drawing porn and yell YEAH DAWG! right in my fucking ear.”

His last remark catches you completely off guard.  You’d gleaned from the Auto-Responder that Dirk was sort of a carnal being, and the near-naked animal-men images all around his room soundly confirm this suspicion, but you hadn't known he actually created erotic imagery.  You have no idea how to respond to it.  You do remark, with incredulity, that it must have taken him a while to even make those bots.

“Years,” he says, his tone floating somewhere between exasperation and seriousness.

“You must have been incredibly dedicated,” you say, in awe.

“And really, really bored.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“And… a little lonely.  I guess.  Probably.”

You frown, and on impulse you grab his hand from where it rests beside you on the bed.  “But no longer!”  With that, you smile at him brightly, and he colors.  You chuckle.  “Why Dirk, I do believe you’re blushing.”

“Am not!”

“You are!” You poke his cheek, and his eyes, avoiding yours until now, slide over to look at you.

“Why would I be blushing?”

On a whim **—**  and possibly just because by God you’re still reeling from that almost-kiss back in your kitchen **—**  you give in to the sudden impulse to lean over and peck his cheek, causing his face to go even redder.  “Would you blush if I were to do something like that?”

Dirk’s throat is working silently, as if he’s trying to say something, but you think perhaps you might have broken him with the contact from your lips.  He’s looked away from you again, so it’s hard to tell completely.  Finally, he manages out, “That was… pretty… yeah.  I would have a good cause to blush then, huh.”

“Yes,” you answer, “If I _had_ done that, of course.”

His gaze drifts to you again, and he says softly, “You kind of missed though.”

Missed?  What the devil does he mean you _missed_?  You’re an excellent marksman and there’s no way you _missed_ kissing him.  He _knows_ you’re an excellent marksman!  “Did I?” you say, astounded.

“Yeah,” he says, almost pragmatically.  “Want to try again?”

“Well, sure, I guess.”  You lean over and peck his cheek again, and a tiny noise of exasperation escapes him.  A shiver seems to kiss his spine, but he’s smiling slowly.

“Still missed, buddy.”

You harrumph rather loudly, and say crossly, “Damn it all, Strider, I’m so confused!”

“Like this,” he says, as close to tenderly as you think he can get, and turns fully towards you.  His gloved hand reaches up and cups your cheek, running a thumb along your jawline briefly and you realize oh _that’s_ what he meant, and you might make a sound of comprehension but you can’t be sure because holy moly this is it, this is the moment.  He’s going to kiss you for real.  You can feel the closeness of him now as he leans in.  His nose is brushing your cheek now.  Oh God, oh God, what do you do?  You’ve got less than a second to decide whether to pull away or not, whether to awkwardly move on to another topic, whether to push him away or pull him closer.  Figuratively and literally.  What do you do, oh _God_ what do you **—**

At the last second, as you’re expecting him to plant one on you, he stops a millimeter away.  He’s shaking, you can feel it, and somehow you know he’s not going to do this without knowing it’s what you want.  After you aborted his last attempt, he’s not brave enough to make a move anymore.  He’s going to leave it up to you.

You’re altogether completely unsure if you’re ready for any of this, but you do know you want to see him unfold and open up like he did in your kitchen.  You want to coddle the terrified young man you saw there.  You want to know him, and you want him to trust you.

You move your head the fraction of an inch it takes to close the distance.

Dirk’s lips are pressed against yours, all of your thoughts melt away.

You immediately decide he tastes just as good as he smells.

 

==>

 

You don’t know what you’d expected him to do.

He’s been throwing you curveballs all morning.  It’s only been a couple hours and already, everything has changed, but you have no idea how much or in what ways.

You’d desperately wanted to jump in, but you weren’t sure when or if you even should, and while you were off balance, he’d pushed you into the damn pool.  You’d tried to test the depth of the water, and he’d back-stroked the hell out of there at the speed of sound.  Now he’s initiating.  He’s giving you those stupid little kiddie-pool maybe-splashes purely intended to aggravate you.

You thought maybe it would be okay to try wading into the deep end again.

Apparently he thought so too.

His kiss is gentle, feather-light, barely there, yet it sparks a fire under your skin that races through you and sets your entire body burning like a flame on oil.  Something so soft and sweet shouldn’t make you feel so dangerously close to bursting loose from everything that makes you human.

He breaks from you carefully, moving back just by a hair, just enough space to take in air, enough space for the moment to hang between you.  The moment can’t be captured, though, and it dissolves into the breeze and is gone.  Still, he doesn’t move further.

You wonder if he’d mind if you did it again.

You eliminate that pesky microscopic distance, equally as careful and delicate as he’d been, and he responds in kind, his lips moving slowly against yours.  It feels like walking a tightrope **—**  thrilling, impossible, emboldening, but terrifying, because one wrong step and it all crashes **—**  and as exhilarating as it is to be this close finally, _finally_ , you don’t have the self-control for slow and careful.  The silken caress of his lips against yours is equal parts treasure and torment, and the fire roaring just under the surface of your skin is going to burn through and eat him alive.

You don’t know where his hands were before, but you feel fingertips brush your shirt, and then his palms are cupping the small of your back, pressing in with the tightness of a man teetering on the knife edge of restraint.  It occurs to you that maybe he doesn’t have the patience for savoring every moment either.

You allow yourself to lengthen the leash on your self control, if only inch by inch.

You lean into him and kiss him fervently, molding your mouth against his with all the fervid desire and adoration you’ve given him so many times in your mind, and to your pleasant surprise, he matches you, gripping your back hard through your shirt and pulling you tight against him.  Your hand falls from his cheek to clutch at his chest, and he uses the newly available space to tilt his head further, allowing him the angle for a deeper, rougher kiss that the fire in you finds far more favorable.

The heat propels your body up onto your knees, but he moves faster and catches you off guard, pulling you toward him so hard you lose your balance and start to topple over, and his hands move to guide you and control the fall so he sinks onto his back with you straddled across his hips, his mouth pulling heatedly at yours.  Your hands scrabble at his chest until you feel stable, and then they instantly slip down his sides to the bend of his waist.  You stuff them under his back, digging what nails you have in between his ribs where you can find them beneath dorsal muscles.  His kisses open up enough that you can taste him in the air and his hands are in motion as well, sliding up your back to your shoulders, squeezing your joints in an echo of the back massage you’d wanted earlier.

You’re not sure, but you think he might be trying to push you up so he can get a good breath.  You slow your pace and delicately break contact, and the sigh that immediately escapes him is so shaky it sounds like a laugh.  A smile spreads across your face, and you bump your nose against his.  His eyes are closed behind his glasses, but he’s grinning so widely it pushes his cheeks up around them, and you’re sure he’s as content right now as you are.

He swallows hard and breathes, “Yes, I see what you mean about my aim, now.”

You chuckle and slowly rub the tip of your nose over his.  His hands mimic the motion on your back.

“This is most preferable to swimming, I must say.”

His actions and expressions had led you to believe he thought so, yeah, but stating it outright still does funny things to your stomach.  You try to respond, but you come up with a whole lot of nothing.  He opens his eyes to laugh softly at you.

“Cat got your tongue there, Strider?”

Sometimes you wish he’d understand how uncomfortable it is to be called out like this, but right now, strangely enough, isn’t one of those times.  You can’t actually admit your feelings to save your sorry soul, but you can awkwardly flirt your way past them.

“Wanna take it back?”

He grins.  “Certainly.”  His hands move up to your neck and pull your mouth back down to his, and you kiss him harder than you would’ve ever believed you could.  You feel like a wave crashing into a cliff, the way he absorbs everything you pour into him and cradles the flow of your manic energy, allowing you to calm down only to work yourself up again, the tide of your desire rolling your whole body against him.

You try to swipe the tip of your tongue at his lower lip, but he doesn’t take the hint.

You’re okay with that, for the moment.

What you’re not okay with is the instant one of his hands moves up your neck and tries to card through your hair.

You jerk back with a hiss, breaking your mouth from his sloppily and far too soon for your liking, to wrench his hand off your head and steer it down to your waist.  His eyes are wide, eyebrows puckered in concern, his mouth half open like he can’t believe or process why you just did that.

You make a sound of discomfort and press your palms gently against the back of your head, as if your touch will numb your twinging scalp.  At your gesture, he seems to understand.

“Sorry, Strider... didn’t think that would hurt!”

You shrug it off.  “Hair gel, dude.  You think a man can maintain a hairstyle like this without a significant amount of product support?”

“No indeed,” he muses, propping himself up on his elbows to watch you pat your aching hair back into place.  “How much do you use?”

“Enough to get the job done,” you grunt.  Your hips are starting to twinge a bit too from being in this position, and you think you should probably get up.  You kind of don’t want to, though.  “Y’know, I should probably wash this before we get in the ocean.  Salt water does a hell of a thing to my hair when it’s styled.”

He raises an eyebrow.  “You mean now?”

Well, you hadn’t, but... “If you’re going to be tugging at my hair, then...”  He gives you a sheepish smile, and you reply with a small nod.  “Gonna hop in the shower quick.”  You get a head start by climbing backwards off his lap.  “You can mess around on my computer, if you want.  Mess with the girls by pretending to be me, or whatever.  Unless you want to join me.”

The last part slipped out on impulse, and you want to kick yourself for it, especially when he blushes like mad and stammers out that it’s a bit too early for that kind of thing, and you hastily insist that you were kidding.  Mostly.

“Cripes, though, I... don’t know if I should handle your futuristic technology!”

You’re not sure if that means he wants to join you and just needs a bit more prodding, but either way, you’re not willing to prod him.  Willing, able, same difference.  “It’s just like a normal desktop, dude.  I’m sure you’ll be fine.  Only thing that could happen is you might hit a hotkey and accidentally accost yourself with porny drawings of us and our friends that the cherub dude requested.  More like demanded, actually.”

You’re hoping this will be a decent discouragement from doing anything but strictly Pesterchum, but he bursts out laughing, accepting your offered hand to help pick himself up from the bed.  He smooths his shorts over his front, and you gesture toward your computer, giving an awkward nod as you back toward the bathroom.  You’re half hoping he’ll change his mind, but half berating yourself for being so stupid.

“Password’s lilcal,” you inform him as you close the door, granting him unfettered access on a silver platter to all your creepiest desires and shutting yourself off from stopping it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ask and it will be given to you


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made a blog just for this fic, [askhopefulheart](http://askhopefulheart.tumblr.com), so you can send asks / submissions / whatever over there if you so desire.
> 
> also,
> 
> be prepared for peenies.

You turn on the shower and let it run for a few minutes while the water heater does its magic.  The filtration system works fairly well, so only a limited amount of salt gets through to ruin your plumbing, but the heater unfortunately is something you are unable to speed up.  Your auto-responder glasses are folded on the toothbrush ledge right where you left them (...okay, forgot them, you’d grabbed a backup set by accident, so sue you), and the message light is blinking.  You can’t tell if it means one of the girls was pestering you or if the Auto-Responder itself is trying to get your attention, but either way, you leave them safe where they are for now and sit on the load gaper while you wait.  You can hear the heavy footfalls of Jake’s boots as he slowly moves around your room.  What is he even doing?  The computer is the focal point of the room; he can’t be looking for it.

You strip out of your shorts and shirt, leaving them on the sink.  Why you had to use the wardrobifier to change, you don’t know.  You’re sure he saw your bare ass; he’d been about as red as a spanked monkey.

...but he kissed you.

You lean back against the tank and smile to yourself, and you know you look pretty doofy but you don’t even care, because Jake kissed you.  He pulled you on top of him and he tried to play with your hair.  Even after all the weirdness and uncomfortable tiptoeing, even after the shittiness in the kitchen, he kissed you.

Somehow, you can’t muster the strength to be frustrated by his unpredictability.

The shower is starting to steam, and outside, you hear him muse to himself about Cal. You press your ear to the door and discern that he’s swearing he saw him earlier and is wondering where he is.

But you know where he is.

You’re so not-frustrated and giddy and _high as hell_ off the last few minutes that you wonder if you should tease your boyfriend a bit.

Oh, hell yes.

Hell fucking yes.

In a second, you silently review the pattern you’re about to take and breathe a heavy dose of calm into your system.  Summoning all the speed you possess, you flashstep out of the bathroom, grab Cal from atop the amplifier tower, and deposit him on the chair Jake is inches away from occupying.  You’re back in the bathroom before he could detect a thing.

He detects something when he sits down heavily on Cal’s squishy form.

You’re sure of this because he lets out a yelp that startles the gulls out of your window and cries out an idiosyncratically Jake phrase that ends with “CAL!” followed by another English-ism expletive.  The guy sure likes to yell about fornicating cheeses and crackers.  “Where the devil-fucking dickens did you come from?!”

Grinning to yourself like a child with a lollipop, you decide to let Jake sort through this one on his own, and step into the shower.  Closing the door behind you shuts out the rest of whatever he and Cal are saying.  You concentrate on letting the water rinse the hardened gel from your hair, and you try to block out the glare of absolute loathing you know Cal had been burning through you, the one that you’d pretended not to see for that fraction of a second you’d looked at his face.

You’re sure of it now.  You almost snort to yourself, because _as if you weren’t before_ , but you manage to just think about what kind of fucked up situation you’ve allowed yourself to get into by bringing Jake here, by remembering you have a home instead of staying with him in dreamland and leaving everything behind but the clothes on your back, by returning to this place as if you are your own person with your own life to patch up.

He was the one you’ve turned to your whole life for every little thing.  He was the one you spilled your guts to, the only one who knew you had doubts and fears and feelings.  You’ve curled up around him at night, nearly every night, even cried into his shirt a few times.

Of course he got attached.

Of course he’s going to be furious that you’re rolling around on the bed he shares with you and making out with some other dude he strongly hinted that he didn’t want you to see.

Of course he would hope that you two would be something not entirely platonic.  Maybe he thinks you already are.

In the middle of running your fingers through your soaked hair, you stop and give yourself a hard reality check.

Cal is a fucking puppet.

If not for figuring out how to use Pesterchum for video calls, you would have gone insane believing Cal’s voice was real, that he could actually move and respond to you.  Some sentimental part of you does like to think that, although inanimate, he is sentient, like your smuppets and a few of your posters.  You feel weird doing inappropriate things under their gaze, as if they’re squicked out and offended by seeing you touch your junk, and Cal especially is someone with whom you definitely don’t want things to get weird.

Okay, but he’s a puppet, and you really need to stop saying “someone” instead of “something.”

Just the same, though, he practically raised you.  That stupid Hollywood big shot martyr bro of yours may have ensured you’d have all this stuff left to you, an endless supply of the right kinds of food, videos to teach yourself how to read and books to teach yourself how to forage any terrain for food — including aquatic, thankfully — and in the end, it was he who had taught you everything you know.  But though his force as a teacher was indisputable, his role as a guide was nonexistent.  He’d never been there.  Cal had.  Your bro had never left anything to tell you who Cal was or how he’d gotten there, and you have no cause to believe the Condesce had anything to do with him; if she’d known you were here as an infant, she would have wiped you out before you could fight back, you’re sure of it, not sent you a snuggle puppet.

And that’s what really gnaws at you about the whole sentience thing.

If your bro didn’t leave him for you, and the Batterwitch didn’t send him, how did he get here?

You’ve scrubbed and rinsed every part of your body at least once, including your hair, but you’re pretty sure there’s still more muck to be cleansed out of it.  In the bedroom, you hear Jake trying to shout a concerned-sounding query as to why his cartoon effigy appears to be eating infants, but you don’t bother trying to answer.  Too long a story.

He asks much more sharply and clearly why you’ve drawn yourself with Jane and him with Roxy.  The edge to his voice makes you think of Cal’s enraged glare.

“Just requests from that Umbrage guy.  Don’t worry about it.”  He makes a loud noise of affirmation, but it sounds more sarcastic than trusting.  “Keep digging, broseph, you’ll find the good stuff.”

You allow yourself one last wash of your hair, and eventually, Jake must strike gold because he begins to decry what a spectacular artist you are.  You’re not so sure; you mostly just scribble and see what comes out.  He goes on to laugh that your drawings are hilarious, and it feels like darts shot through your chest.  If he’s found what you assume he has, none of what he’s looking at now is meant to be funny.

“Yeah,” you say as you rinse, and you manage to not snarl at him, “entirely requests he wanted, one hundred percent done for laughs.  Nothing serious in there at all.”

You’re pretty sure he doesn’t pick up on the sarcasm because, get real, this is Jake, but his laughter does fade, and as you work conditioner into your hair, you think he might have gone silent.  You can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing.

Then you find out why.  “Strider, is it my imagination, or is Cal giving me a decidedly unfriendly look?”

Oh shit.  “Um... nah, dude, he’s fine.  What, you don’t think he’s actually _alive_ , do you?”  You feel awful saying it, like a rock dropped in your gut, but he is just a puppet, no matter how much you adore him.

“No, I’m... quite certain he’s unhappy.”  He pauses, and as you rinse the conditioner off your hands, he says, “Cripes, but he’s creepy.”

Okay, no, you are not having that.  “You take that back,” you snap.  Jake makes absolutely no reply, even while you quickly rinse your hair a final time.  Perhaps he assumes you’re kidding.  You’re not having that either.  Cal’s a big part of your life, he’s practically your dad, way more of a parent than your douchecanoe bro ever was, and hell if you’re going to do something as repugnant as take off for Wonderland and leave him on this livable lightning rod.  “He is coming back with us, you know.”

Jake’s tone is not that of a man who is willing to budge.  “Only because he means so much to you.  I don’t want to see him if I can help it.”

...wow, is he fucking serious?  Does he even understand what a huge deal the C-man is to you?  Or is he trying to pull your leg?  Something about his voice indicates he’s not.  You shut off the shower and storm all the way out of the bathroom, throwing the door open and leaning on the handle.  Jake’s back is to you, still clicking through all your unsavory artwork — damn, he found the really explicit stuff, you’re actually blushing more than he is in the face of a particularly detailed drawing of you bound and gagged while he stuffs you — and when your eyes rove the space in search of Cal, you find him face-up on the floor.

On the fucking floor.

You find your anger button activated.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”  Your voice comes out quiet, and that makes you even angrier, and god dammit you have the weirdest rage boner right now.  “He shares my _bed_.”  You resist the urge to call him an unpleasant name and remind yourself of the mental checklist of the True Things You Have Decided in the Shower.  Jake is your boyfriend.  Jake picked you above the girls, who he should’ve liked better, and he wants to make out with your face.  Jake is a person you love, and who loves you.  At least, you’re pretty sure he has for at least twelve hours.  Cal is a comfort object.  Cal is a puppet.

Jake is still staring at your kink artwork instead of turning to face you.  He talks to your monitor.  “If we’re to share a bed, he is not to sleep with us.”

Water is still running off your body in tiny rivers and your hair is dripping in your face, but you can’t muster a single shit within your being to give.  “I’m not going to make that choice, Jake.”

He sighs loudly and flops back in the chair, and slowly starts to turn it around.  “I swear on my grandmother’s ashes, Strider, I will buy him his own bed if I have to, but I’m not going to share with him! He scares m-... me...”

As soon as his eyes connect with you, he trips on his words so hard he faceplants on them and slides along them on his cheeks, and they instantly turn beet red.  His mouth hangs slack, his eyes are popping out of his skull, and his hands clench on the armrests of your chair.  You have no idea what’s gotten into him, but it’s sort of infuriating you even worse, except for the fact that he just offered to buy Cal his own bed, which is... actually really incredible?  If only he’d pick him up from the floor, your rage might dissipate completely.  But he’s gaping at you in a way that indicates he might have forgotten Cal exists.

What-the-fuck-ever his deal is, you’re going to focus on the positives here.  “You’d really get him a bed for himself?”  He snaps his jaw shut and finds the capacity to nod, but nothing further.  “That’s really cool of you, dude, you don’t... have to do that...”  He tries to nod again but he just ends up making a kind of strangled sound.  You sigh.  “I know this is probably weird to you because I’m getting pissed off about a puppet, but you need to understand how important he is to me.  I’m not willing to give either of you up.  Even if you guys really do not like each other, I’ll find a way to make this work.”  He nods so fast his head just vibrates in place, and okay what the hell.  “Bro, what is going on with you right now?  You look like you tried to swallow a fork.”

His attempt to speak just comes out as a whisper, and then he swallows hard and chokes out, “Strider you um... might want to get a, uh... towel.”

Oh shit, right, you’re destroying the flo- ...and that’s not what he’s staring at, is it.

Mother _fuck_.

 

==>

 

Well you guess you could say you’re a very lucky duck.  You also guess you could say you were blessed with a well-endowed boyfriend.  You also guess you could say this is the first time you’ve seen a winky dink in person that wasn’t your own in your entire life.  Well, you caught a glimpse when he was changing but that doesn’t count.  It was a glimpse.  And it certainly hadn’t been... well, at attention, so to speak.  You can’t help but feel a tiny bit turned on.  Okay maybe more than a tiny bit.  Okay maybe a whole helluva lot.  Holy shitaki mushrooms you’d have never thought you’d be this turned on for anyone.

“Fuck,” he curses loudly and slams the door to the bathroom, and you hear the muffled sounds of him shuffling things around in the bathroom.  The sink hisses to life.

You relax in the chair, leaning your head back and inhaling what can only be essence of Dirk.  Wow do you love how he smells.  You smile and close your eyes, envisioning your dream, and how it felt to have him on top of you and murmur to yourself, “You can say that again.”  Yet apparently Dirk has not only the eyes of the hawk, but ears too.  “What was that?” he says, opening the door a crack.

You sit up straight again, your face coloring.  Bollocks, how had he heard you?!  “Nothing.  I didn’t say anything.  Right Cal?  Yes, see, he agrees with me.”

Dirk’s eyes narrow.  “Cal says you did.”

You clear your throat, and straighten your embarrassed face as best you can.  This puppet business really confuses you.  You can’t really tell whether he’s damned serious about what he’s saying, or if he’s just pulling your leg like he more often than not is doing.  He has a tendency to tease the daylights out of you while you let him, unaware that he’s actually mocking you.

Nonetheless, you can’t help but feel like you’ve perhaps ticked a nerve or something.  He sounded genuinely upset with you.  Perhaps this uncanny doll holds more meaning to him than you had originally thought.  You suppose that could quite possibly be it.

“Cal’s a dirty liar,” you say, scrunching your face up in response.

Dirk’s face remains looking slightly peeved, and he says, “You’re stealing Cal’s boyfriend, dude.  He doesn’t like you right now.”

 _Phooey_ , why the dickens can’t you tell if he’s serious or not?!

“Well,” you say, deciding for the moment to play along, “Cal had best learn to suck it up!”

His face melts into one of slight amusement, and he disappears back into the bathroom.  The water turns off, and you can hear him mumbling something stressed-sounding that you swear includes the phrase “sorry friend” before there’s a splash of water in the sink, and Dirk makes a high, choked sound of discomfort.  What the dickens is he doing?

After a moment, he comes out completely, a towel casually tied around his hips.  It hangs there just barely.  Just.  Barely.  It could slip off at any damned moment, and you’d be subjected to... to...

Oh goody, you can feel a phantasmal boner about to rear its head in your shorts.

He strides — you almost snort because _aha, strides_ — over to you, and his slight smile widens just a bit.  The towel seems to inch lower down his waist and good gravy would you just look at those rivulets of water trickling downward, beneath the fabric and to his nether regions.

Oh _God_ his nether regions.  You thought you were past being a horny bastard for the day.  Apparently not.

“I love how you don’t comment that a puppet thinks he’s dating me,” he says, and then frowns immediately, looking downward at Cal.  “...No, Cal.  Of course I’m not serious.  We were only ever casual.”  He stares at the puppet, a hand traveling to his hip, and he tacks on, “You do know that, right?  I mean... yeah.”  The two stare at each other, and you look back and forth between them, unsure just how far Dirk is willing to carry this ruse.  He crosses his arms.  “I’m sorry, dude, but... I would’ve said something, you know that... look, can we agree to talk about this later? I think you need to cool down.”

Okay, wait just a ding dang minute here.  Is he seriously talking to Cal?  Perhaps your hearing’s gone haywire and you just can’t hear the fellow but you swear to God there is no way that puppet is anything but that.  A puppet.

Even then, the thing seems sentient and more than a little murderous towards you.  That also reminds you that he moved on to the chair!  How on God’s green Earth could he do that if he didn’t happen to be an intelligent life form?  Of... some sort?

Dirk picks Cal up and brushes him off like he’s been sullied, then gently set him down next to his computer.  In the process he leans over you, and drops of water fall onto your legs, sending chills down your spine.  It’s only then that you notice that Dirk’s hair is really damned long without all that hair gel caked on, and you have the overwhelming desire to run your hands through it.

“Cripes,” you breathe out, “Your hair really is long, huh?”

He looks startlingly insecure for a moment, and says, “Is that a good cripes or a bad cripes?”

You rush to patch up your wording.  “It’s more of a shocked cripes, I think.  It’s definitely a good thing!  Most assuredly a good thing.  But _holy mackerel_.”

He laughs a little awkwardly, and stands up straighter, shrugging.  You stand up slowly, and hesitantly reach for his hair.  “Can I...?”

He shrugs and looks away.  “Yeah man, sure.”

You gently run your fingers over the top of his damp hair, barely touching him.  You’re almost afraid to ruin it somehow.  But it feels incredibly soft, even wet, and you dig your fingers in a little more.  The smell of his shampoo hits you, and it smells nice.  Kind of citrusy with a little sugar added.  But that’s not what he smells like all the time so you wonder if perhaps Dirk just naturally smells like a god or if he uses some kind of lady killer cologne that his older brother left him?

The sensation of his hair between your fingers is magnificent, and you are so very much tempted to kiss him while you dig your fingers into his hair.  Of course, you suppose you’ll have to wait until he’s fully dressed, right?  You kind of wish you could just kiss him like this though.

You smile and murmur that his hair feels damned nice, and he leans into you a little more than he was.  He makes a noise of satisfaction that makes your heart flutter, and you’re about to say something when your neck starts to tingle so you look behind you.  And there is that God forsaken puppet drilling its plastic blue eyes into your back.

You withdraw your hands.  “I ought to stop,” you say quietly.  “Wouldn’t want to make Cal jealous, eh?”

Dirk slides a look over at the puppet.  “Cal needs to understand I’m in a committed relationship now.”  His voice cracks when he says relationship, and he looks at you uncertainly.  “I mean... aren’t I?”

You grin widely at him.  “Most definitely.”

He seems to sigh in relief.  “Okay.  Good.”  He clears his throat, and he’s cool and confident once again.  “So, yeah.  We had fun, and he’s always been there for me, but I’m with you now and he needs to respect that.  So, if he gets jealous, that’s his fault.”  He takes a step closer to you, and puts his hands on your waist.  They’re warm, and a little damp, but you like the feel of them there, so you don’t say anything.

“We’re together,” you say firmly.

“Actually together,” he says in a tone of disbelief.  He takes another step closer, and his hips bumps into you.  The warmth coming from him makes your skin redden, but you lean into it, resting your head on his shoulder.

“You’re going to get me wet,” you mumble into his shoulder.

“Oops,” he says, not sounding the slightest bit apologetic.  “Is that a problem?”

“Not in the least,” you say, lifting your head up to smile brightly at him.

He grins back at you.  “Excellent.”

You have the overwhelming urge to bump noses with him, so you do, and it becomes an eskimo kiss.  He closes his eyes, and so do you.  Your chest starts to feel tingly, and you wrap your arms around Dirk, pulling him closer.  Oh boy, you’re starting to feel kind of cheesy.

“Dirk...” you say, and he grunts, giving you the go ahead.  “You know something funny...?  I feel like I’m supposed to be right here.  Like I’m one part of a puzzle, and you’re the other.  And now that I’ve found you...”  You trail off, not sure what to say, but you just sigh happily and hope that he gets the point.

He’s laughing a little, but you know he’s smiling.  He pulls you back into a full embrace, his hands still at your hips, and says, “It’s super corny, but... same.”  You gently lean your head back onto his shoulder, resting there and inhaling him.  “I was always alone out here,” he continues.  “I mean, sure, there’s Roxy, but she’s completely inaccessible.  And she hits on me anyway and it’s weird, and it alienates her somewhat.  And then there’s Cal, but he’s only animate when I move him.  If I hadn’t made the robots, I would’ve gone crazy and probably started thinking he’s actually alive.”  He pauses.  “And the robots are robots.  Enough said.”

You frown for a moment, taking all this in, and then something occurs to you.  “Wait... you’re saying you moved him?!”  You pull away, and gape at him.

“Shhh,” Dirk says, pulling you back, and covering your mouth with his hand.  “Daddy’s talking.”

You start to splutter against his hand, and manage a discernable “Strider!” but he just gives you an amused look, and says, “English.”  So you shut up and let him continue.

“I just...” he sighs, removing his hand from your mouth, “I was so completely alone.  And then there was you.  And I thought _no way in hell could he feel the same.  Gotta head this off before I get hurt._ ”  He grins.  “But failed spectacularly apparently.  Because here you are.”

“Well I had to dig it out of you, that’s for damned sure,” you say, but you’re smiling softly.

“Yeah, good luck getting me to admit something if I’m not sure I’m on equal ground,” he says, and he leans in and presses a kiss on your lips, his own still warmed from the shower.  You don’t expect it, but you certainly don’t find the action arguable in any sense, so you kiss him back.

It’s a slow kiss, one that’s gentle and in no way hurried.  Not like the last one where you were dying to have more, for him to invade every sense of yourself.  You kind of like how slow it is, but Dirk isn’t in the least bit satisfied it seems, because he breaks away, trailing kisses along your jawline.  The sensation evokes feelings in the pit of your stomach that cause a moan to burst from your mouth, and Dirk’s hardly done anything yet.

He breaks away, still hovering over your skin and your upturned head, and purrs against you, “Gotta shave, English.”

“I like to keep a five o’clock shadow,” you say breathily.  Oh God, you sound like a maiden being ravaged by her hero at long last but you don’t particularly care because this feels great.  His hands are playing piano on your chest, moving up down slowly and touching the exact keys that make your heart sing.  “I have that... rugged adventurer dealio going, you know.”  His hand tweaks at your nipple and you squeak a little.  Okay, so maybe not squeak.  Jake English most assuredly does not squeak.

_Oh God he did it again._

Okay you squeaked.

“Sexy,” he says, planting a gentle kiss on your neck.  You smile slightly, and murmur that you really do try.  Of course you don’t, because you’re just dorktastic Jake English, but you’re in the heat of the moment and by God he could get you to say anything right now.

“Kind of giving my nose rub burn, though,” he says, running a hand up your chest to your neck and rubbing one of the pulsing veins in your neck.  Your heart rate is through the roof right now, and he’s making sure you know that he knows.

“I can shave,” you say, gulping.

He shakes his head.  “I was only teasing.”  You suddenly feel his mouth locked on to your pulse, and he’s sucking at it gently, and that makes you think of him sucking other pulsing things gently, but oh sweet Lord in heaven you _can’t_ think of that. No no no.

He then starts to pull at your skin harder, and you feel your breath hitch.  There’s no way you’re going to be able to stay standing for much longer, so you reach up to grip his shoulders tightly.  “Cripes,” you say, choked.

He smiles against your skin, his lips moving upward slowly, teasing you.  And then he starts to go at it a little harder, digging his fingers into your back.  You arch reflexively, murmuring something that’s incoherent even to you, and then he starts to flick his tongue and that sends you that much closer to the edge.

The fact that you might get off this easily is kind of a little embarrassing.

And then he bites you.

You cry out, and grip him tighter, but he stops immediately, and pulls back so fast you suspect his head might be spinning.  “Sorry,” he says, and he looks so gosh darned guilty about it.

“No no no,” you say, “No that was... that was great.”

“Oh,” he says, and then he looks down at your neck.  His eyes go wider than Jupiter in a split second and he says quietly, “Oops.”

“Oops?”

“You kind of... have a mark.”

“A mark...?”

“Yeah.”

“Like... a hickey?” you say.

“Like... a hickey.”

“Oh,” you say, but it doesn’t really register so you just repeat “oh” a few more times before you reach up and touch the spot where he was having a night on the town.

“Sorry,” he says again, and he sounds unbelievably discontent with himself.

“That’s... that’s perfectly all right.”  You’re still kind of shocked that you somehow managed to get your first hickey so you guess you probably sound pretty odd because Dirk still doesn’t seem too convinced.

“I should have asked,” he says, and his face contorts into a vision of anger, and you know it’s towards himself.

You finally wake up from that stupor, and you rest a hand on his shoulder.  “It’s fine, Strider!  Who’s going to see it anyway?”

“I dunno,” he mumbles, “the girls if you video call them.”

You smile a little.  “There’s always me turning up my collar!”

He winces.  “It’s a bit high for that.  You can try though.”  He pauses, and looks at you funny and you extend your hands outward in a in invitation for him to explain.  “Actually, maybe seeing it would get the girls off your dick.  Who knows.”

You raise a brow.  Off your wanker?  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His eyebrows shoot up.  “Dude... I think it’s fairly obvious that both of them have at least a minor crush on you.”

You stare at him, blinking furiously.  The girls... what?  You’re confounded.  Why would they have a crush on you?  They’re practically your sisters at this point!  Holy trigonometry, this is probably the biggest shock you’ve had besides Dirk kissing you.

Janey... liking you?  No way in hell!  Roxy?  Not a chance!  You swear that she has a thing for Dirk!

“You can’t be serious!” you exclaim, staring at him incredulously.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which shit goes down.
> 
> Stock up on heavy-duty tissues. For a multitude of reasons.

The world starts to shatter all around you and you have no idea where to even start picking up the pieces.  You're inclined to think that if you try, it'll just end up worse, because you'll get all cut to shit and you still won't be able to put anything back together.  It's broken now, you fucking broke it because you break everything good that ever happens to you, you can't ever just leave it the fuck alone and trust that it'll work, no you have to destroy it, and now you have, good job asshole, way to go.

Jake is still in a daze.  "Really?  I… holy smokes.  I just, it… oh my flipping gosh."  He runs a hand through his hair.  "I can't believe this."

But he will.  After the shock wears off, he'll believe it, and then he'll get curious, and he'll stray.  Because Jake is like a butterfly.  Beautiful, carefree, perpetually curious, and brainless.  You can't pin him down without killing him.  To let him be is to let him go.

You've known this.  You've always known this.  But you're not ready yet to let him go.  And it's too late, you don't have a choice, you exhausted all the time you had because you broke the glass that was keeping him contained.

You step back from him, because if you don't put physical distance between you immediately, you'll try to cling as he flutters away, and you'll crush him.  You have to cut yourself off now, and hard, so you remember not to kid yourself.

You force the words out of your mouth.  "Well.  Now that you know… go for it."

He stares at you, his gaze flicking down to your feet as they move away from him.  "What?"

"I thought… you knew.  I thought you knew, and you just didn't care.  And you really did want me more."

His eyes are widening in confusion, but you refuse to see it, because he'll get over it soon.  "What are you talking about?"

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out, nothing about how all of this rode on him legitimately choosing you over the other available, more suitable, options.  And he didn't.  You were just the first person to show interest.  All this is fueled by a damn wet dream.

You're going to burn that sleeping bag.

No, you're not, because you're never going back there.  You're sending him home and you're smashing the transportalizer into a billion bite sized pieces.  Maybe you'll send it to Roxy.  Give her the chance for socialization that she deserves, and you don't.  You don't even want it anymore, any of them, fuck it, fuck everything.  You're walling up inside yourself, hardening your heart to everything that breathes outside it, you'll die here alone and you can't even care because who would want you.  You don't even want yourself.

He steps toward you, reaching out, and you jerk back.

"Strider…"

"Look around," you snap at him.  You're too tired to snap, too tired to feel, but it pours out anyway.  "Look at all these fucking posters.  You're not like this.  You're not like me."  You don't say the word because fuck that label, fuck the people who try to pigeonhole you into a word, you're not defined by any of that shit, but he knows exactly what you mean anyway.  Comprehension registers behind his glasses.  "You'd rather be with one of those big-tittied explorer chicks and you know it.  You wouldn't want anything to do with me if I hadn't… I don't even fucking know what I did."

He looks like maybe he doesn't either.  And that's just as well.  If you're both on the same page of not knowing why the hell he's here, maybe that'll make him leave faster.  Dragging this out isn't going to help anything, and fuck it, you're going to take a bat to the walls shattering around you if it makes it be over sooner.

"Dirk, I… really don't see what our… orientations or whatever have got to do with anything."

You suddenly want to scream at him because he's not fucking getting it, it's not _your_ orientation he should be thinking about, it's _just his_ , and Jesus _Christ_ why does he have to be so frustrating?  Why can't you two just _talk_ to each other?

"It matters because you didn't know the people you want more actually do want you too.  I thought you were… for real.  Serious.  About me.  Not just as a last resort because no one else seemed interested."

His eyebrows are furrowed so tightly they might merge.  "I realized my feelings for you before I kne—"

"But now you _know_ they are, they _both_ are, and they're… fuck, they're girls, okay, so just… fucking go for what you really want, because you can have it.  Nothing's stopping you."

The snap of his fingertips into your jaw is sharp and unexpected, and it ignites a flash fire in you like a flint against stone.  His face is hard and angry, and he says something, but you don't hear it over the roaring inside you.  Your breath goes short, your eyes blow wide, and every muscle in your body tightens.

Your voice comes out too soft, too calm.  "Don't hit me."

"Don't tell me what I feel," he growls, pointing an accusatory finger up your nose.  "I'm the only one who knows how I damn well feel, so don't you start that poppycock with me.  I won't have it."

You don't give a shit and you're going to bite that finger off if he doesn't get it out of your face.  "Don't.  Hit me."

Jake opens his mouth but before he can respond, his face changes, and you know he has understood your tacit threats just as easily as a viper knows it has been perceived by a mouse.  He shuffles back a step, his figure hunching.  "I'm sorry."

"Don't fucking hit me."

His hands shoot up.  "I'm sorry.  It won't happen again."

"You do it again, I'll hit back, and you won't like it."

"I know.  I'm sorry."

The two of you stand opposed as your breath hisses slowly in and out, and you wait to decide whether you're going to forgive him.

He whispers another apology, and his hands start to move forward, not within reach of yours yet but working their way toward them.  You stare at him.

"Dirk…"

He slides a foot in your direction, and you don't stop him.

"If I wanted a relationship with either of our ladyfriends, I would have done something about it.  Just as I have with you.  I don't need confirmation beforehand."

He steps toward you again, and you're breaking like you always do, you want this to be easy so badly that you're forgetting it's not, you're just going to let him drag you around indefinitely.  He reaches for your hand, and you let him.  You shouldn't, you should pull away and kick him away from you, but you don't.  You can't.  He's stronger than you, because for all your talk and all your sword bullshit you are the weakest fucking person you know.

"The only thing this changes is that I feel strange engaging in a relationship while knowing that other friends are interested in me.  But it doesn't mean I intend to leave you because of it."

His fingers slip into yours, and you let it happen.

"You're the only one who holds my interest.  You see?"

You don't, but you nod.

"I love you."

You don't believe him, and the words hit you like a punch to the gut.  "I don't know why you would."

He gives you a look like he's not sure you're being honest.  "Then I'll tell you."  His hands close around yours, and he's moved right in front of you again, his toes brushing yours.  "You might be hard on yourself — and don't deny it," he tacks in quietly as you open your mouth to lie that you're fine, "but we all are.  I mean, I don't understand what you see in me.  I'm just a self-focused youth obsessed with something I'm God awful at.  Can't tell you how many trees I've run straight into.  And don't try swinging from the vines.  It dang well doesn't work."  You allow yourself a smile at that image.  "The truth is, you've got a heart rare among any person I've known.  That heart is the most fascinating thing I could possibly want to explore.  And I do, Dirk.  I want to know the parts of you no one has ever seen."

And once he does, once he sees how boring and needy and impossible you are, he'll be gone.  So it is finite, then.

"I really don't get it, dude."

He squints at you.

"I just… I'm having a hard time accepting the idea that anyone might like me," you admit, your voice quiet enough that the gulls nearly drown it out.  "Let alone you."  His squint deepens, and holy dog shit, he really isn't getting this.  You're attracted to the densest person alive.  You're almost ashamed.  "I don't like me.  I fucking hate me.  Why would anyone else like me?"

Realization crashes over him like a tsunami into your apartment.  You still don't know if he truly understands the depth of it, but he gets it now.  His face softens, his eyes go watery like he might start gushing over you, and you start to pull back ever so slightly because you really don't think you could handle waterworks, holy hell no.  He holds fast with one hand, reaching for your face with the other, and he brushes his knuckles over your cheekbone.  He could say any number of things, go on about how much he pities you, fret over how you need to think better of yourself, assure you it'll go away.  But through a choked voice, all he says is, "What's not to like?"

God, you love him so much.  "Everything."

He shakes his head at you, slowly and gently, and caresses your cheek.  "Nothing from where I'm standing."

"Oh, then maybe you should move over here a little," you suggest, gripping him under the arms and shuffling him sideways, and he has the chivalry to laugh at the humorous half of your joke rather than chastising your self-loathing complex.

"Nope," he insists, "still fine."  Before you can say anything further, he pulls you against him tightly, squeezing you around the ribs as hard as he can.  You're sort of having trouble breathing and if you bruised easily you'd be worried, but you mostly don't care, because whatever just happened, you know he's not going to let go of you as quickly as you'd feared.  Eventually, yeah, you're certain of that much, because everyone has to get tired of you eventually.  You were tired of your own clone before you'd even finished programming him.  But for now, you're going to cherish your butterfly for as long as he'll grace you with his presence.

"I've got your back," he murmurs to your collarbone.

You run greedy hands over the sculpted curves of his dorsal muscles.  "And I've got yours."

He chuckles because yes, you do.

You cling to him and hope he isn't repulsed by your blatant desperation.

He doesn't seem to be, because he nuzzles your throat and locks a hand in your still-drying hair.  You fold yourself around him, and he bears your weight, adjusting his posture to carry yours.

Your hips slide against his, and the resistance of his swimsuit against the towel does something you really should have anticipated.

He goes rigid, and you're not sure whether this disappoints or thrills you, because he's definitely noticed but he's obviously not throwing himself at you for it.  "Um."

You just keep on hugging him.

"Your, ah… towel…"

You close your eyes and bury your nose in his hair.

"It dropped."

"Yep," you tell his scalp.  "I'm aware of that."

"Just thought you would like to know."

The close-buzzed hair on the nape of his neck feels like velvet.  "Thanks for that."

"No problem.  Any time."  His hands rub absently over your back, and he clears his throat.  "Um… do you need help getting that?"

You're sure you could handle it, but you don't particularly want to cover back up right now.  Heaven only could fathom a reason why.  You allow yourself a chuckle.  "Maybe."

"You're going to have to be a little less vague."

You shrug the shoulder he doesn't have his face buried in.  "I'm content like this."

"So…"  He draws back just enough that you have to pull your face off his head, and you lock eyes.  "Is that a no?"

You shouldn't be able to get this flirtatious after an acute episode of self-loathing, but you can.  You think that might be a good sign, like he's actually getting to you.  You're inclined to think it's just the same old wool you always pull over your own eyes, though, but knowing doesn't stop you from falling for it again.  "If you want it on me, you're gonna have to get it."

He clears his throat much longer than could possibly be necessary and carefully steps back from your embrace, deliberately keeping his eyes locked on yours despite the playful, shit-eating smirk you're giving him.

He closes his eyes while he redirects them to the floor.  What a gentleman.

Without looking back up at you, he balls up the towel and holds it up for you to grasp.  "Thanks, buddy."  You remove it from his grasp, sure to tickle over his fingers as you do.

This seems to snap something in him.

His tense form relaxes like releasing a breath, and his gaze slides up your naked legs, pausing to soak up the sight of your length, which you begrudgingly admit shrivels a bit at being gawked at so blatantly, holy shit you can hardly stand to look at yourself naked, it’s jarring and terrifying and exhilarating that someone else would want to voluntarily.  When his eyes finally meet yours again, you're loath to find the tables have turned, and it's him that is suddenly flustering the fuck out of you.

He rises, and as he does, he runs his hands up your thighs and hips.  "You need me to secure that for you, Strider?"

You swallow hard on nothing.  His voice has taken a turn for the gravelly and you don't think your heart is supposed to pound this fast.  "Obviously I'm shit at it, so…"

"Obviously."  He snatches the towel from your hands and throws it around your shoulders, tugging the ends until it's tight around the back of your neck.  "How's this one work for you?"

You can't exactly pull in a full breath, and the towel isn't over your windpipe, so you have nothing to blame.  "Works fine."

"Oh excellent," he purrs, and he drags you toward the bed like a dog on a leash, his aroused grin lighting up the room and making you hope to every deity you know of that he wants what you think he wants.

 

==>

 

You don’t know what’s come over you but by God you like it.  It was just as if suddenly this other side of you woke up, and all you wanted to do was have Dirk against your body as fast as humanly possible.  It might have something to do with his break down, because that certainly hit a few of your heart strings.  You never knew Dirk felt like that about himself, and you’re astounded that he does.  Surely he can recognize his genius, his heart, and not to mention those rugged good looks?

He might not think so, but you’re pretty sure he beats you in ruggedness.  Would you just look at that jawline?  Or the way he smiles?  Or those _eyes_?  You sound like a giddy schoolgirl gossiping to your friends about him, but you don’t much care.  He’s hotter than Hades.

Suddenly you remember you were about to try to have your way with him.

You pull him towards the bed, sitting yourself down.  Your hand still has a firm grip on the towel, and you could pull him on top of you at any second.  He seems to know this because he gulps.  Your expression has to be ridiculously self-satisfied right now, because making him this flustered makes you feel invincible.   _You’re_ doing this to him.   _You_ turn him on.  You saw that boner when he’d burst out of the bathroom.

“Where were we?” you murmur, looking up at him.  There must have been something in your voice because when he responds he sounds almost shaky.

“Why don’t you remind me?”

You tug sharply at the towel and he jumps.  “Gladly,” you say, your voice low.  Slowly, you pull his head down and plant a feather light kiss on his lips.  If you didn’t want to drag this out, you would’ve pulled him on top of you lickety split, but you plan to make this last as long as humanly possible.

Something about the way he’s breathing tells you he knows this.  You hover there, millimeters away from his lips, letting him feel your closeness.  Letting him wait.  If you take too long, you’ll ruin this, so you wait until he finally breathes out, “Going to make me wait all day, Mr. Croft?”

You think you growl, but you’re not sure, because who growls?  So you pull him on top of you in a split second, and you guess you shocked him because a sound of surprise escapes him.  “It’s not Croft,” you say, frowning, “It’s Ja—”

He doesn’t let you finish because he’s kissing you as hard as he was a few minutes ago back at the computer.  You can feel the emotion in it, and for a split second you remember that expression he wore as he spilled his heart out before you.  You don’t want him to feel like that ever.  You want to cradle his heart in your arms and make sure no one ever hurts it ever. Damn it all, you’ll make sure of it.

He’s kissing you like he may never get this chance again, and God does it feel great, but you want to make this slow.  You want him to know that there will be plenty of other times for this and he doesn’t have to shove off all of his desire in one sitting.  His hands are entangled in your hair, his legs straddling you like an expert.  As embarrassing as it is to admit, you can feel your tallywhacker hardening with every move he makes.  You notice his is as well, but not by looking at it. You can feel it.

Breaking away, you say thickly, “My turn.”  With that, you trail kisses down his neck, biting whenever it tickles your fancy and you feel like its an opportune moment.  His breath hitches with each nip, and your smiling against his skin.  At last, you find what you’re looking for.  A throbbing vein.  You learn through experience, and what Dirk did to you over at the computer had you on fire.  You think maybe it will have the same effects when performed on him.

Locking your lips on it, you swirl your tongue around the pulsating vein, and are delighted to hear a groan almost immediately escape him.  You keep going, repeating your motions and occasionally dragging your teeth there.  His breath grows heavier, and you pause for a moment, your grin as wide as the Amazon River.

“I’ve hardly even started, Strider,” you say, “Did I get to you already?”

He seems to have gotten some portion of his cool back, because he whispers in your ear, “Why don’t you take a look?”

You almost blush beet red, but you refuse to do any more of that blushing business.  “I don’t need eyes for something I can already feel,” you reply.

He’s frozen again, and you internally wince.  You said something wrong again, you know it.  “Sorry,” he says, and suddenly he’s pulling back.  You curse yourself in your head over and over as you pull him back to you, keep your arms firmly locked around his waist.

“Why are you sorry?” you say, “That’s what’s _supposed_ to happen.”  You pause, and lick your lips, still tasting him there.  “Right?”

He won’t meet your eyes.  “I keep thinking you’re going to back out or something.  I don’t know.”

“Dirk, I’ve already said yes.  A million times yes.  If I were going to back out I wouldn’t have slung that towel around your neck and pulled you over here.  I’m not going anywhere.”  You bring your head up to his and kiss him very gently, putting your heart into it.

“Okay,” he says, “Sorry.”  He sounds none too convinced.

You look at him and try to make yourself appear as meaningful as possible.  “It’s okay.”

He nods, and closes his eyes for a few moments.  When he opens them again, he’s himself.  Yet you can still see that tiny flicker of doubt.  And that hurts.  Why won’t he trust you?  It’s only been a few hours, and you’re already having issues.

“Let’s tell the girls today, Dirk,” you say on a whim.  “Make this absolutely official.”

“Wait... really?”  He sounds so completely surprised you wonder if he ever accepted you asking him to date.

“Yes really,” you reply.

“Like now?” he says, frowning.

You shake your head. “Oh no. We’re finishing this up. Afterwards.”  You lick your lips again, and are pleased to find you can still taste him there.  You kiss him again, slowly but deeply, invading his mouth with your tongue as you see fit.  You are the emperor and his mouth is a land to conquer.  He seems to like this because for the briefest of seconds he sucks on your tongue, tugging it into his mouth.  You groan and wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

He tastes like salt and oranges and so many other things you’re having trouble describing it.  You think though that it’s the most perfect taste in the whole world and you don’t ever want to stop kissing him. Not ever.

His hands slowly move from their position on your shoulder to your waist.  They take their sweet time getting there, seeming to trace every part of your body as they go down, making you shiver as you continue to work his mouth.  When at last they’re there, you stop and start to kiss down his chest, and his hands fly back up to your shoulders, gripping you tightly like he’s about to fall.

“All right there, Strider?” you say, grinning as you pause just at his nipple.

“Yeah. Don’t stop,” he says shortly.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” you say, and you twist your body, flipping him onto his back so that now you’re on top.  He quickly recomposes himself as best he can, but you barely give him the chance.  You kiss down his neck, biting again, but harder than before, and when you reach his collar bone, you swirl your tongue in the hollow of his neck.  He releases a small whine that makes you grin, and you murmur that perhaps you’re better at this than you thought.  He doesn’t answer, just runs his hands along the waistband of your suit, hinting that perhaps you’re a bit too clothed.  You agree, but you don’t say it, instead kissing just behind his ear.

And then suddenly there’s a hand on your bare arse.  You squeak, and he laughs, squeezing it.  You murmur that was unexpected and his face goes insecure again, but you don’t let him voice the thought because you’re damned fine with him touching your petunia.  So you kiss him.  He takes this as the go ahead to use his other hand to grab your other cheek, and you think you squeak again because he’s laughing into your mouth.

He starts rubbing slow circles onto your bottom and your whole body clenches up.  “That’s a new feeling,” you say, and he replies that he hopes it’s a good one to which you reply it most certainly is.  He then comments on how much he loves your ass, and starts doing that circle thing again, and your mind goes blank.  You’re helpless right now.  All you can do his rest your head on his chest and kiss him there over and over again, with varying levels of intensity.

He pauses for the briefest of seconds, and you take that opportunity to suck at his neck again, and suddenly his hips are lifted against yours and grinding.  “God, Jake,” he says, his head tilted upward.  You unlock yourself from his neck as a twinge inside your stomach causes you to gasp with surprise.

“Yes, Dirk?” you say throatily.  Is that _your_ voice?

“You’ve just got me really worked up,” he says, his voice deeper than normal.  He sounds almost pained.

“That’s kind of the point,” you reply.  You give a roll of your hips against him, and are surprised to find he throws his head back and groans.  So you do it again, and again, until you’re grinding against him, the sweet friction driving you mad.  A shout rips from his throat, and he’s locked his ankles around you.  His hands haven’t left your ass for a second, but they’re clutching it now more for support than to get a reaction out of you.

You plant another kiss on his mouth, murmuring something like you don’t understand what he’s doing to you, but you can’t really be sure what comes out of your mouth because good _God_ this feels so good.  He says something, but you don’t quite catch it because suddenly you’re too clothed and you want to have all your bare skin against him.

“There’s too much between us right now,” you say, pausing, feeling wildly desperate.

“Do you mean your shorts?” he pants, “Because if so, I agree.”

You nod and sit up, fumbling with the knot that ties the offensive swimwear to you.  You try as hard as you can to get the damned thing undone, but it’s just not having it.  It is then that you deeply regret having ever taught yourself to tie knots as well as you do.  It doesn’t help that your fingers are shaking so badly from the feelings that are welling up inside you. Feelings you don’t think you’ve ever felt before.  Not even in your dreams.  You have to agree with yourself.  The real thing is so much better.

“Something wrong, Venture Scout?” he says as you continue to struggle with your finely done knot.

“I’ve tied the knot a bit too well,” you say, the frustration evident.

He smirks.  “Did you permanently bond your shorts to your body?”

“Posh,” you huff, “I’ve done nothing of the sort. This is just... one of my best knots.”

“Maybe we should just cut those shorts off of you, hmm?” he says, his smile lazily widening.

You shake your head vehemently.  “These are my _skull_ trunks,” you reply, and it’s then that the knot finally gives way and you’ve got loosening up with every second.  Dirk’s eyes are watching your hands like a hawk.  He finally sits up and pushes your hands away, undoing the rest of the knot, and then murmurs that you need to stand up now.

You do, and he slowly drags your trunks to the floor, careful not to snag them on your front as he goes.  He stays there for a sec, and lets out a low whistle, and you try your best not to laugh, the combination of giddiness and nerves hitting you like a drink.  “Like what you see?” you ask, and he looks up, locking eyes with you.

“You tell me,” he replies.  You open your mouth to respond that you’ve got no way of knowing when you swallow your words right back down your throat and into your voice box again.

He slowly stands, keeping his eyes locked on yours.  You try to say something again, but you can’t.  He’s...

He’s _touching you._


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time to up the rating on this popsicle stand.

Those orange eyes are piercing yours, down to your very soul.  You can’t break eye contact with him, not even when he gives your down-under a squeeze that sends fire through your veins.  You breathe in sharply, and he smiles like he knows he’s got you.  “This okay?” he murmurs.  He knows the answer.

“Yes,” you say, and your voice cracks so badly it’s embarrassing.  His fingers slowly unwrap themselves from around you, and you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding.  In their place is left a burning remnant, a pale shadow of his actual hand.  You want it there again.

“Come on then,” he says, and he sits back on the bed.  You slowly walk over, your steps tentative.  Suddenly your nerves are in every direction at once.

“Dirk,” you say hesitantly, “I’ve never done something like this before.”

He shoots you an exasperated look.  “And you think I have?”

Put like that, you feel rather sheepish.  "True enough.  You just seem so… sure of yourself, is all."  He starts to turn red and mumble an apology, and cripes, is he ever going to just let loose and trust he doesn't need to worry about messing up around you?  Your breath hisses out in an amused sigh.  "It doesn't bother me, Dirk.  It's actually quite attractive.  I only hope I'm not going to bugger it all."

You think he looks relieved, but you're not accustomed yet to knowing what his expressions mean, so you can't be sure.  "You won't.  If anything, it'll be me, acting like I know what's going on."

"Well, you haven't done anything wrong yet," you assure him, "I can tell you that much."  You climb onto the bed and chase his form as he crawls back to lie across it as one should, and his arms guide you into place above him.  You're hesitant as tarnation to sink against him and touch your… thingydoodles together, but it's entirely first-timer's nerves and nothing to do with not wanting, so you buck up and slowly let your hips drift down atop his until you're flush.  His eyes flutter closed as you move, his mouth parting slightly with labored breath, and the sight of white-gold eyelashes dancing in ecstasy over his freckled cheeks is almost more than you can bear.  He's making that face just for you.  He's making that face _because of_ you.

You stare at him, unmoving, until he notices.  "You okay there, dude?"

You wish there were a way to convey all you're feeling, all the joy and wonder and excitement, but no one ever accused you of being eloquent.  You prop a cheek on your hand and trace a finger down the tendon of his throat, delighted at the shiver he produces in response.  "I'm really glad we're together, Dirk."  You watch him search your face for traces of doubt, uncertainty, heedlessness, and as he finds none, you watch the last vestiges of his own melt away until he's just staring at you staring at him, the smile in his eyes all you need to see in the world.  Shifting your position slightly to find a more comfortable angle, you press your mouth to his, chaste and gentle.

He returns your kiss, his movements equally tender, and as you comb through his soft unstyled hair, his arms rise to wind around your back.  His fingers dig into your muscles and massage slow circles, and you can't help but groan a bit under his touch.  He seems to take this as encouragement because he kisses you more firmly, and you feel his legs carefully slide out from under you to press his knees around your thighs.  The change, small though it is, has his abdomen at a different angle against yours now, and you feel like perhaps he's asking to… well, do the do, as it were.

A sudden head rush makes you dizzy, and gadzooks, you are pretty sure you aren't ready for that yet!  You haven't even established who would take what position, for frigs sake!  You've only been together a matter of hours, wouldn't it be a bit hasty to jump straight onto the horse like that?

You break the kiss delicately and almost giggle to yourself because you're quite certain Dirk wouldn't object to your referring to the do as a horse.

His gaze upon you feels like the last few embers of a fire that refuse to go out, providing you with the inner warmth that calms you and makes you feel like home.  You may not be ready for the full monty yet, but you want him, you know that much.  You want to feel the gentle squeeze of his hands on you like in your dream, like they were only a moment ago, and you want to do that for him, too.

His knees loosen a tad around your thighs.  "Where, uh… where do you want me?"

You smile a bit, because wow, what a silly question.  "Honestly?  Everywhere."

He laughs, low and quiet.  "Back at you."  He tips his chin to kiss you again, and you kiss back soundly, opening your mouth when his tongue begs entry.  He licks the back of your teeth, his fingers pressing down hard into your back, and you let your hand tickle over his throat and shoulder, down to his chest, making him sigh at your touches until you reach his nipple and give it a little pinch.  His sighs turn into soft moans, and he grinds his hips up against yours, and _golly fucking willikers do you want more of that._  You shift your hips as you memorize the texture on the roof of his mouth, giving yourself just enough space to slowly trace your hand down his supple waist and follow the v-line to where it meets his treasure trail.

At this point, you would have to move your hip so you could reach what you want.

Of course, with the way he's rubbing it against you, creating glorious pressure on yours with his own hip, you're pretty sure it would be prudent to ask before diving right in.

You break the kiss again, and you whisper into his mouth, "May I?"

He swallows hard and nods, his nose tickling your cheek, but says nothing.  Considering how worked up and bothered he was a few minutes ago and how quickly his mood shifted from angry to randy, you aren't entirely convinced he's acquiescing because he wants to, not because he thinks he should.

"Dirk, if you don't want me t—"

"I do.  Please."  He starts to gnaw at his lower lip, then tacks on, "If you're sure you want to."

"I'm sure," you breathe, and you shift yourself accordingly, letting your hand drift down to carefully wrap around him.

His reaction is immediate and intense, clenching his knees around your legs for a brace as he bucks his hips upward into your fist.  Your eyes widen a touch.

"Apparently I'm doing something right."

He doesn't give a verbal reply, just a strangled-sounding whine, and you take the moment to get a feel for the sensation of holding another man's winky in your hand, giving careful squeezes and slow, scrutinizing strokes.  In unyieldingness, it's no different from your own, and in truth it isn't all that much longer either, but its girth is something to be reckoned with, something plain to see from all the way across the room.  You allow yourself an inkling of pride that you can meet your fingers around it.  His texture is also a bit different, and you realize as you gently slide your hand up his shaft that you're tugging his skin along with you.  A bolt of panic darts through you because _it's not supposed to do that!_ in the instant before you realize he's not circumcised.

You're almost too bashful to wonder how that would affect things if you were to place yourself at the bottom.  Almost.  Moreover, you're just physiologically curious.  Does it hurt?

By the increasing pitch of his groans and the gyrations of his hips against your hand, you think perhaps it doesn't.

You gently swipe your thumb over the bell end, which holy cripes is a lot firmer than your own, and slide your hand back downward to press through the patch of coarse hair to his body, reveling in the subtle pull of skin.

He whines, blunted nails biting into your back, and heatedly demands, _"More."_

In that moment, you realize two things.

The first is that he most definitely is not pained by your ministrations, and that moving so slowly must be torturous for him.

The second is that Dirk has taken the utmost pleasure in teasing you and twisting your head around in circles for as long as you've known him, and you're not exactly unwilling to believe turnabout isn't fair play.

You nuzzle under his ear and murmur, "More what?"

He doesn't seem to have a response for you, and your teeth quickly seek out the dark spot you left on his neck a moment ago while grinding against him through your swim trunks, though your hand maintains its agonizingly slow pace.

His voice is several pitches too high when he groans, "You're killing me."

You apply a slight bit more pressure as you reach the top of your stroke, and he makes a sound you can only accurately describe as a squeal.  "Really?"

His hands scrabble over your back and words pour from his mouth, "Please, dude please, I want you so bad I can't do this anymore please just more please I need you—"

"You've got me right here," you purr, and he breaks, yanking your face up to his with an exasperated growl and mashing his mouth against yours.  You allow him to vent his frustrations with his tongue under yours, but your pace does not increase.

When he pulls away, his breathing is so ragged it can't be healthy, but you still don't relent.  Strider is an unflappable fortress of stoicism and cool wit, and to see him writhing like a tickled caterpillar and having lost all emotional control, and knowing it's all because of you, is making you quite a bit more switched on than you ever would've imagined.

He meets your eyes, and he looks like he's drowning.

"Please, dude… I don't want to pressure you but this is actually getting kind of painful."

"Oh."  You consent to speed up ever so slightly, until the pained look on his face begins to fade just enough for your satisfaction.  You whisper, "I actually do know a thing or two about this sort of activity, Dirk.  I'm doing it on purpose."

He whines and wriggles, but when he says, "You're awful," he sounds less distressed and more facetious.

You add a little turn to your wrist that makes his eyes roll back, and you say, "I think you'll like it more this way.  What's the hurry to have it over so damned soon?  Where's the fun in that adventure?"

He makes a frustrated noise and explains between gasps that he just enjoys the feeling of you touching him and he wants more of it.

"Oh?" you muse, hiking the movement up a single notch in tempo.  "I never would have guessed."

He attempts to take the control into his own hands, thrusting up against your palm at an almost frantic speed, but you shift a thigh to pin him down, resting all your weight on his legs.  You concede to meet him halfway with a pace that feels fine enough for you but still too slow for his liking.  Truthfully, you don't want it to be over so soon for your own benefit either; his firm heat in your hand, though so similar to your own, is so different, and it's _his_ , and that _matters_ , and you want it to last as long as he can take it.

You're not sure how much longer that will be, though.  His breath is escaping in stuttering whimpers, like he can't draw in enough of it, and his cheeks are starting to get quite pink.  His nails slip down your back, and somewhere in the back of your mind, you know they're digging in hard enough to leave marks.  Your voice comes out deep and raspy.  "I never thought I'd get to see you undone like this."

He has no reply for you but the continued rolling of his hips and the increasing volume of his whining gasps.

You wonder how much louder his sounds would be if you gave in to his request.

At last, you allow your hand a pace you would normally use for yourself, and the shout you wanted almost distracts from the sharp sting of his nails raking down your ribs.  You mirror his gasp with one of your own, but he's not the first between you to cry the other's name in impassioned bliss.

He starts to apologize but you cut him off straight away, pushing your mouth to his so fast your teeth click, attacking the inside of his cheeks with your tongue and delivering the speed he desires.  You swallow all of his cries, pumping him as fast as you're able even after your wrist begins to twinge, and you swear his pleasured shouts down your throat are like singing.

Abruptly, he pulls away from your mouth, and he chokes out, "Jake, I— I'm gonna—"

Your pace falters for a second, because "Going to what?" but you don't stop, and the question is answered for you as you feel the tell-tale swelling of the shaft just before the grand finale.  You reach the top of your last stroke just in time to catch his fluid in your palm as it spurts out, letting him stutter and whine beneath you, orgasm stealing all his breath away.  His mouth gapes and his Adam's apple bobs, and you find yourself unable to help giving it a quick lap of the tongue, making him seize under you.  He rides it out and you keep his spunk contained in your hand, carefully rubbing the tip to help him milk the last of it out, and at last, his form relaxes entirely with the heaviest sigh you've ever heard.

You eskimo kiss his neck, and he chuckles breathlessly.  Of course his first word after he calms himself is, "Sorry."

"For what?" you wonder aloud, then realize the awkward position your hand is still in so as not to spill his own stuff onto his stomach.  "Oh.  It's perfectly fine.  My fault anyway, right?"  He chuckles, and you admit, "Can't say I regret it, though."

"Me either," he murmurs, rubbing over a welt on your back.  "Shit, sorry for this too, I really should've asked."

"There didn't seem to be time, to be fair," you allow, and you plant a kiss on his cheek before you say, "I really should get cleaned up though."

“Whatever you want, dude,” he replies, sounding almost breathless, but he’s smiling.

You kiss him lightly, tenderly, and then hurriedly make for the bathroom, and wash all of the gooey remnants of your night on the town.  And what a night.  That was too gosh-darned perfect.  Everything about that is something you’re going to commit to memory.  You’d basically had Strider on his knees.

The water spurts a bit and you jump, watching the seed wash away.  It swirls down the drain of the sink, leaving behind a funny and familiar smell.  You wrinkle your nose but are unfortunately reminded of something.

You forgot to clean the sleeping bag.

_Shit._

You’ll have to get that taken care of as soon as you’re home.  You hope he hasn’t discovered it.  That would be extraordinarily embarrassing.

Dirk murmurs from the bed that you need to hurry your ass up and come back on over, so you switch the sink off and proceed to crawl back into the bed with him.  He lodges himself behind you and wraps his arms around you the instant you’re there, nuzzling your neck and planting feather light kisses.  You wish he would’ve let you face him, put your arms around him in turn, but it’s nice to feel him cling to you like this, so contrasted from his normal detached apathy.

“All right there?” you murmur, sighing contentedly.

You feel his lips part against your skin, smiling fully and completely. In the back of his throat, he hums a little, something you’d never think you’d hear.  “Yeah.”

“You should smile more often,” you say, “It’s nice.”

He rests his cheek on your back, and says softly, “As long as we’re like this, I will.  I guarantee it.”

You turn over, both of you shifting to accommodate the other.  You meet his eyes and give him one of your most intense looks.  “Swear it?”

Deadpan, he holds up a pinky.

You lock your pinky with his, grinning.  “Good.”

He grins back, and he pulls your hand to his mouth and kisses it like you’re some kind of royalty.  You laugh and exclaim, “Dirk!”  He only smiles against your hand, and murmurs your name, his breath tickling your skin.  You bring your hand and his back, kissing Dirk’s.  You feel inclined to whisper, “My prince,” but you don’t because that’s kind of silly.

Instead you say, “Do you want to call the girls now?”

“If you want...” he says, “But I was inclined to think it was your turn.”  A slow, mischievous smile spreads across his face, and he walks his fingers across your collarbones like a little man.

Your brows shoot up.  “My turn?  I... I dunno...”

“Do you _want_ to?”  Fingers are starting to make their way down your chest, towards, well, your _you-know-what._  You dry swallow, and his gaze flicks back up to your eyes while he slowly licks his lower lip.  “I’m inclined to do whatever you want.”

You take a deep breath, trying to maintain some semblance of control, and say, “Onward march, then.”

“Yeah?” he says, his fingers pausing.

“Yes,” you stutter out.

In flash, he’s flipped you onto your back, and he’s atop of you with the biggest shit eating grin you think you’ll ever see.  You’re about to say something, but you forget what it is almost instantaneously, because he’s _licking your collarbone_ and casually making his way southward _._


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone keeping tabs of all the names we've used for the penis gets a cookie at the conclusion of this fic
> 
> also, tumblr user brodingershat is responsible for Roger, we're not claiming that one

You’re going to kill him.

He knows better than to torture a boner like that, and regardless of his “wanting to make it last” excuses or your begrudging admittance that it was the best orgasm of your entire life, that was a dick move he just pulled — no pun intended — and you’re going to kill him for it.

In kind, of course.

Your tongue on his collarbone is feather light, drawing a trail to the hollow of his throat, and beneath your hands, you feel goose bumps erupt in a wave up his arms.  His Adam’s apple bobs and twitches as he gulps past high-pitched noises.  You lock your mouth around it, making him gasp, and coax superficial vessels to bursting under the suction between your teeth.  By the time you withdraw and begin to move down his chest, the mark you’ve left squarely in the middle of his throat is large enough for a half dollar coin, and his collarbones are littered with fingernail-sized dark spots.

When his Adam’s apple is released, he swallows hard and breathes, “Holy smokes.”

You decide you like that review very much, and it becomes a game of wheedling reactions out of him.

Outlining his pectoral muscles with your mouth makes him flex unconsciously, gasping and shivering.

A quick pass of your tongue over his nipple causes him to hiss in a gasp, and a second languid lick makes him squeak.

Digging your fingers between his ribs and gently pressing your teeth around the areola gets him to fist his hands in your hair and whine your name.

It makes you pause for a nanosecond.  You’ve always been fond of the idea of making him cry out for you, but hearing your name spoken in a fit of heated arousal, like a prayer, makes you a bit uncomfortable.  You decide you like the physical reactions much better than the verbal, and the game shifts to accommodate the new goal.

Your hands rake down his sides, following the direction given by your mouth as it slides over his solar plexus and down the subtle division of his abdominals, leaving a glistening path in its wake that goes tacky in the air.  Breathlessly, he calls you some sort of pet name that you suppose could be erotic, but you’re more interested in the way his hands remain clenched in your hair and his muscles reflexively harden and shrink away from your touches.

When you dip your tongue into his navel, his tummy pulls back but his back arches toward you, altering the angle of his hips and subsequently pressing his erection to your throat.

You try to recall the euphoric elation you’d felt at the first sight of him, your first touch, how ecstatic you’d been to see him nude and be granted permission to touch him, how excited and curious you were about the differences between you.  Even though it was only a moment ago, it feels like days, because with his dick brushing against your neck like this, smearing a drop of pre-ejaculate on your chin, you’re suddenly terrified.  Even though this is what you wanted to do, what you volunteered to do, you’re not sure if you’re ready anymore but you guess you’re obligated to go through with it at this point and all you can think is how glad you are that his dick isn’t as thick as yours because you’re certain there’s no way you’d be able to stuff that into your mouth.

You think maybe you’re just nervous.  Drawing this shit is one thing, doing it is another entirely.  To be realistic, at this point yesterday you were still busting a head gasket over whether the damn transportalizer would work.  You’d literally never met another human being before, or any other sentient living being, for that matter; you’re inclined to think gulls don’t count.  Now you’re having heavy petting naked makeout sessions with Jake and preparing to put his dick in your mouth, and no matter how naturally it all seemed to happen, you’re still pretty damn twisted about it.

God, you sound like a fucking baby.

You hope you’re just nervous.

You’ve been so busy being a goddamn nervous retard that you haven’t been paying attention to the hickey you’ve been working out of his stomach, and you weren’t even aware until now that the toughened flesh of his abdomen was even susceptible to hickeys but this one is even bigger and darker than the pair on his throat, and the bobbing of his penis against your neck has been a result of his hips bucking out of proximity frustration, his noises sounding less like satisfaction and more like choked gurgles.

He gathers the breath to accuse you of lying about not knowing what you’re doing.

You have no idea how you could’ve practiced, if that’s what he means, and frankly you’re pretty peeved by that accusation.  Doesn’t he get it yet, that every drop of desire you’ve ever felt for another person has all been for him?  You guess that with the art you’ve done, you _have_ thought about this a considerable bit more than he has, which is any, and that must be what he means.

You murmur into his treasure trail that you’re just doing what comes naturally.  You have the grace to not add the addendum your mind supplies, that if you have anything to do with it he’ll be coming naturally too.

“Cripes, well—” he stammers something you can’t understand between his incoherent state and your vantage between his legs, but it ends with “getting me fired up good” and you suppose he’s referring to his cock stabbing you under the chin.

You inform him you’ve noticed.

He giggles and says “It’s a little hard _not_ to notice!”

You snort and laugh because _it’s hard, hahah,_ and he blushes and gives you a playful swat to the back of the head.  You’re glad he still has the courage to roughhouse with you, considering your explosion for his earnest slap earlier.  It’s not that you don’t want to be touched _ever_ , and you’re relieved beyond words that he’s noted the difference.

You glide your hands over his hips and down to the middle of his thighs, and you move them open a bit wider to accommodate the breadth of your shoulders.  He clears his throat and avoids making eye contact during the Awkward Pre-Sex Readjustment, aiming his blush at the ceiling as you size him up with your eyes and remember that you’ve wanted this more than anything for almost as long as you’ve known him.

You nuzzle the soft flesh inside his thigh, and he shivers, his hands flying off your hair to clench in the sheets.  With your cheek pressed to his leg, your breath moves the coarse hairs in front of your nose.

“You ready?”

You watch the hickey on his throat change shape as he swallows hard several times, and at last he whispers, “As I’ll ever be.”

It occurs to you that perhaps he’s as nervous about this as you are, and that maybe you _don’t_ have to jump headlong into it like a great bellowing lunatic.  You go completely belly down and shift your arms to lay atop his hips, letting your hands trace slowly up and down his sides.  “You don’t sound very confident there, Brave Adventurer.”

“Nonsense,” he huffs, “I’m completely prepared.”

You’re tempted to ask in what manner he has prepared himself, but you leave that for a later day when you’re both more comfortable and casual.  “If you say so.  It’s okay if you’re not.”

“No,” he insists, getting some of his breath back.  You’re pretty sure you don’t like that.  “I do say so.  I’m ready.”

You’re still not convinced that you are, especially because as close as you are to his junk, you can actually _smell it_ and it _has a smell_ and while it’s mild and not unpleasant — he must’ve cleaned up pretty well after the wet dream, praise troll Jegus — it’s definitely different, musky and warm and other things you can’t describe with sensory adjectives but it just _smells like a dick, okay_ , and you weren’t really expecting dick to have a smell.

You wonder if it’s true that all things taste how they smell.

You stop allowing yourself time to worry yourself into catatonia over this and dive in, licking a thick, slow stripe up the underside of his length.

If physical reactions are what you want, you’ve hit the motherload: the small of his back arches clear off the bed, his shoulders going taut as a rubber band, his hips trying to buck up but pinned down by your upper body strength, and nothing comes out of his mouth but a gasp.

Your tongue traces his frenulum, and his breath releases in stuttering whines, his legs twitching and seizing around you.  If you’re not careful, you think he might try to clamp your head between his thighs.

Somehow, this doesn’t discourage you.

You lick across the head, and you encounter a sudden burst of salt, enough to make you recoil.  Thankfully, he chooses that moment to squeal that he hadn’t expected you to do _this_ , and you mutter on autopilot that with the southward movement of your mouth you don’t know what else he expected you to do, swallowing the bits of remaining salt that cling to your tongue.  Again, it’s unexpected but not unpleasant; you’ve never felt the urge to taste any of your own because _Jesus Christ that’s fucking perverse_ but you’re starting to kick yourself for sheer inexperience and lack of preparation for this end of the equation.  He doesn’t taste bad, doesn’t taste like anything really, just more of the same skin as the throat and stomach you’ve been working at, but the texture is pretty strange, unnaturally sleek yet riddled with tiny snakelike veins.

You don’t dislike it, though.

You’re weirded out by this revelation, but not weirded out enough to stop.

You’ve kind of accepted the fact that you’re just a dude prone to indulging in and enjoying weird shit.  You have full-fledged conversations with a puppet on the regular, after all.

You do, however, chastise yourself for thinking about Cal even for a second while you’re going down on Jake.

Which you really should keep doing.

His hands are twisting pretzels into the sheets and he’s babbling that he’d just expected you to do what he did, he wasn’t thinking you had a destination in mind for your mouth, you were just being kissy and affectionate and he hadn’t thought you would try licking his Roger, and you absolutely cannot choke back a laugh because _he named his dick?_ but no, no he hasn’t, and he sounds frustrated enough to slap you again as he explains breathlessly it’s just a word for his, you know, ding-dongly bits, which he wails through your laughter that he would _really appreciate_ you doing _something_ about because this whole teasing shebang is exceedingly unkind.

You remind yourself there’s a wet dick in your face, and this is enough to make you stop laughing and get back to thinking about sex instead.

His eyes are wild behind his glasses, the green ring barely visible around dilated pupils, and you raise an eyebrow at him.  “Happy birthday, then.”

He starts to argue that it’s not his birthday, but when you lower your mouth over the head of his erection and suck gently, his words dissolve into garbled whining that only dogs should be able to hear.  You slide downward, taking him slowly into your mouth, bobbing back up after each half-inch, swallowing around him when necessary and humming your amusement at his sounds.  His legs shake beneath your arms, his fists balled so hard the knuckles are white, his head thrown so far back you worry vaguely that he might need a neck rub later.  You’d be happy to provide for him, if he’s willing, and judging by the noises he’s making and the sharp arch of his back, you’re ready to bet he’d be perfectly willing.

He hisses high and loud, and he demands through his teeth, “God dammit Dirk, just finish me off!”

You want to.  Oh how you want to.  But you like to think you can be a pretty big shit disturber when the urge strikes, and you can’t stand to give him the satisfaction when you could, y’know, not.

You slide him out of your mouth as slowly as you can, savoring every lick, and be sure to make the most grotesque popping noise when you pull your mouth off at last.  You delicately prop your chin against his head as you speak, so he can feel the vibrations — enough to tease, but not enough to do the job.

“I thought you wanted to savor the moment?”

His groan of frustration sounds more like a herald’s bugle.  “Holy smokes, is this what you went through?!”

You chuckle against him, and he writhes.  “Mmmmmmaybe.”

“Mother of _God!”_

His frustration is both adorable and really, really sexy, pushing that button that makes you think _you’re so freaking precious and yet I want to lick your face_.  “You want more?”

He lets out a trumpetous sound that might be “please” and you feel like he might not give you much choice here.  If you hold out on him much longer, it’ll probably end up being more painful than enjoyable for him, and you wouldn’t want that.

“I guess I’m feeling pretty good after what you did for me...” you muse, and he shoots an offended glare at you about _Only pretty good??_ but you ignore it, going on, “Good enough to let you off easy.  Or should I say, _get_ you off easy.”  You chuckle at your own joke, but he just keeps glaring daggers at you, so you quiet yourself and apologize for this grievous indiscretion.  “Since you’re being so impatient, I think I can find the generosity to indulge you.”

You wrap your lips around him again, this time pushing straight down and taking everything into your mouth that you’ve gotten so far and then some, sliding down as far as you can comfortably without gagging, and you swallow around him.  The look of sweet relief that floods his face is almost worth the way his hips buck too violently for your grip to contain and he rams his dick into the back of your throat.

You choke and pull back, and he spouts apologies, reaching for your hair to pet your coughing away.  After a moment, you catch your breath, and you realize that, as strange as the sensation was, you actually _like_ it.

You catch his eye, and as you begin to lower your mouth back over him, you nod.

He stammers for a moment, but when you bob your head firmly once, he gets it.

You position your head and throat in a manner that works most comfortably, and with his gaze locked on yours, waiting for an expression change that would signal him to stop, he begins to thrust into your mouth.

It’s rough, like trying to swallow a mouthful that hasn’t been fully chewed, and you’re not sure you can breathe through it at first.  After only a few strokes, though, you match his pace, and you assume command again, simply guiding his hand up to clench hard in your hair while his hips work on reflex, his actions pushing whimpers and shouts from his lips.

After another few strokes, though, his shouts take on words — your name at first, then “It’s— I’m—” and you discern what he means immediately because you feel on your tongue the telltale swelling of the underside of his shaft.

Suddenly you understand what he meant about making it last.  Despite your initial reservations, you don’t want this to be over yet.

In a split second decision, you give him a quick thumbs up and brace his clenched buttocks under your hands, encouraging him to let go.

He realizes what you want and starts to protest with the shrill panic of immediate danger, but you give him a pointed stare, and he gripes, “God _damn it all_ , Strider,” thrusting up into your mouth once more.  You groan around his length and swallow hard, and the combined sensation is what pushes him over the edge at last.  He makes a sound you didn’t know humans were capable of producing, his hands both fisting hard enough in your hair that it hurts — you think you actually feel some hairs loosening, and you make a mental note to facetiously berate him for it later — but for now, all you can focus on is the not altogether pleasant feeling of his spunk sliding down your throat.

You are half thankful he’s in too deep to land any of it on your tongue, and half curiously regretful.

His body tenses like a bow ready to snap, and gradually, as he releases his pent-up orgasm, he relaxes, his limbs going to jelly around you.  You swallow once more to milk him dry, he cries out from overstimulation, but when you feel the last of it drip out, you’re content at last to pull off him and assure yourself that you’re still capable of breathing.

Unfortunately, swallowing isn’t a great idea anymore, now that your mouth is free once again to salivate.  Though none of it landed directly on your tongue, you can still taste remnants, and holy actual shit, it’s so goddamn bitter it _burns_.

You make another mental note that your boyfriend needs to bulk up on fruit if you ever plan on doing this again.

You aren’t sure why you phrase your mental note that way, because in spite of the god awful taste and the plethora of uncomfortable sensations, you’re sure you’re going to do it again.

He’s regained his breath enough to pant out, “Dirk Strider, you’ll be the death of me!”

You sit back on your heels and grin at him.  “I hope not.  But the lack of cleanup is pretty nice, don’t you think?”

He chuckles breathlessly.  “Yes, that’s very true.”

“The taste leaves something to be desired, though.  No offense.”

His chuckle turns into a laugh, but he scrunches up his face in disgust.  “I would imagine!”

You push up onto your knees and shuffle around his legs, starting to move toward lying down beside him.  As you sit, you murmur, “I’ll just have to get used to it, then.”

 

==>

 

You gape at him.   _Get used to it?_  Get _used_ to that?  As in _more?_  You barely managed to handle that one!  Your body is still shaking from your release.  And down there still is going to _ache_ for days from lack of attention.  Yet with more attention you can safely presume that it’ll ache even more.

“Are you saying this will be happening again?” you exclaim, sitting up.

He pushes you back down and lies beside you, his arms snaking around your chest and holding you there against him.  “If you’re okay with that,” he replies, and he sounds somewhat hesitant.  “I don’t know if you noticed but...”  He pauses and glances around, then grins and whispers, “I kind of enjoyed it.”

You chuckle, and say, “I don’t know who enjoyed that more.”  

You’re still fairly sure it’s you, but his smile spreads wide and you almost rethink that.  “Me,” he says, meeting your eyes.  You’re ashamed to say, but just that look makes you aroused all over again.  Not that your thingamabob isn’t still calming down.  Because it most assuredly is.

You murmur apparently it was him, and laughs and starts to say something but stops and mutters that whatever he was about to say would be really fucking creepy.  You shift onto your side and look at him with one of those looks again.  The ones that mean you won’t tolerate any funny business.  “Oh, phooey!” you say, “What is it?”

He sighs in resignation and says, “I’ve kind of wanted to know what you tasted like for a while now.”

“Really?” you say, surprised.

He nods.  “Yes sir.”

You wrinkle your nose at the thought of how you taste.  Probably like dirt from being outside so gosh-darned much.  It can’t be an entirely pleasant taste.  “I probably just taste like salt and the outside.”

“It’s quite the adventurous flavor, if I do say so,” he admits.

You laugh a little and then lick your lips.  “You don’t taste too bad yourself.”  He tastes like paradise, that’s what he tastes like.

“Oh?” he says, one of his golden eyebrows rising.

“Yes, like oranges funnily enough,” you say.  Which isn’t a lie.  His skin has a citrusy flavor, similar to whatever he uses for his shampoo.  You suppose that’s probably what it’s from because underneath all of that he tastes of saltwater and sun.  You could eat him up.

“Holy shit,” he says, a low chuckle coming from his throat.

You smile back and close your eyes, reveling momentarily in just lying there with him.  You never thought happiness like this was possible.  “This is nice,” you murmur, and you feel him snuggle into your chest and he agrees softly.  You wrap your arms around him as well, and you lie there in silence for a few moments before you finally breathe out, “I guess that covers the adventure for the day.”

“Probably.  We can always go swimming later,” he replies.

“ _Oh yeah_.  I still really want to do that,” you say, your heart seizing at the thought of that adventure.  You’re slightly jealous that Dirk can explore the underwater while you’re basically limited to land because of the stupid sea beasts that lurk in your water.  “But first,” you murmurer as your stomach growls, “I think some lunch might be in order.”

“Probably yeah,” he says, “I mean, I’ve had my fill of meat for today but I could always go for more.”  You almost choke, and look over at him, and he winks at you with a cheesy grin.  A laugh bubbles up from your throat, and then another, and suddenly you can’t stop laughing because that is probably the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.  When you think you’ve finished, you start laughing again and it just doesn’t stop.

Dirk just watches you the entire time, a pleased expression stuck to his face.  When at last you’ve calmed down, he says, “You’re really cute when you laugh.”  You open your mouth to protest but he’s three steps ahead of you because he hurriedly says, “I mean rugged.”

“Damn right you mean rugged!” you reply.

“Obviously,” he says, and you can hear that classic sarcasm in his voice once more.

You lean over and kiss his cheek, causing his cheeks to redden, then sit up. “Alright, let me get my trunks on.”

He turns over onto his back and gives you a ridiculous pout that you didn’t think his face was capable of.  “Aw, do you have to?”

“Well I suppose we could have a naked lunch,” you murmur, and he shrugs, the pout vanishing.

“I was only kidding.  Mostly,” he rakes a look down your body, lingering at your weenything, which is still half-hard.  Well it was, but the blood is rushing there all over again with one glance from him.  You gulp as he stretches a leg out and it brushes against yours, sending chills through your body.

You stand up hurriedly, his eyes locked on you.  “Alright, where are my shorts?” you say, looking around the room.  You don’t spot them anywhere, and you suppose he must have tossed them into the mess that was, until recently, his living quarters.

“Wherever you kicked them,” he says.

You spot them at last, and you stretch a bit before you go over to grab them.  A few of your joints crack, the sound somewhat jarring, but the feeling great, relaxing your body, still full of sexual tension.  “There they are,” you say, mostly to yourself, and you go over to grab them.  His eyes follow you like a hawk, and you have to grin.  “Appreciating my arse again?” you say, glancing over your shoulder as you bend over to grab the swimwear.

“I’d bite those cheeks like an apple,” he says, a lazy smile gracing his face.

“That so?” you say, standing slowly.

“Just give me a chance,” he says and he runs his tongue over his teeth.  You can only grin and wiggle your bottom in his direction.  He’s out of the bed so fast you hardly see him, and he’s almost to you when you have the sense to move out of the way.  “Oh, you rat bastard,” he swears, and then he starts to advance on you.  You back up slowly, laughing nervously.

“Now, let’s be rational, Strider. It’s just a bottom,” you say.

“A bottom you better cover pretty quick before I get the horizontal action started all over again,” he says as your back hits the wall.

“It’s rather hard to get at it from this angle,” you say.

“Oh, you wanna play that game with me, English?” he says, a smile dancing on his lips.  He sidles up to you and plants his hands firmly on your hips.  God, are they always that warm?

Your lips twitch as you try to keep from smiling.  “Perhaps.”

In a flash, he sweeps his hands to the back of your legs, and lifts your legs around his waist.  You barely have time to catch your breath before you feel his hands cup your bare ass.  “Got you,” he says, smirking.

“Really?” you say, grinning, and you lock your ankles around him.  He presses you tighter against the wall, your dong dangle pressing against his stomach.

“Really,” he replies, inches from your face.  He won’t close the distance between you two, you know it, so you lean in and kiss him hard, and his mouth immediately opens for you.  You take no time to hesitate, instead going immediately into the action of tasting every part of his mouth.

A noise of frustration escapes him, and he presses himself closer, making you gasp into his mouth.  He takes the opportunity to suck on your tongue, which reminds you of what he was sucking not five minutes ago, which makes your nether parts leap against him.  He chuckles as he continues to kiss you.

You start to slip and grip his shoulders.  He takes this as a sign that perhaps it’s time to stop, because as much as this is sexy, it’s somewhat uncomfortable, so he gives your buttocks one more squeeze before letting the kiss go.  “Told you,” he says, grinning.

“You sure showed me, eh?” you answer, and you give his nose a bump with your own.

“Guess so,” he says, and he rubs his nose against yours.

You smile, joy surging through you.  “Alright, Mr. Strider,” you say, “Let me down.  I’m starved.”

“Fair enough,” he says, “You’re kind of heavy anyway.”  He sets you down, and then gives your bottom another squeeze before letting go completely.  “All those adventurer muscles.”

“Dirk!” you exclaim, covering your bottom with your hands quickly.  He says your name in kind with the same tone of voice, grinning at you.  “Don’t mock me, sir!” you reply, and you make a move to smack his bum for a change, but he dodges it with ease.

You huff and say, “How about some lunch then?”

He shrugs.  “Sounds great.”

“Alright,” you say, and you turn to grab the sandwiches out of the bag you brought.

You can still feel his eyes on your arse.


	10. Chapter 10

The two of you sit together, naked, in the middle of his room, eating lunch. How you got there is still something you’re having a hard time fathoming, but you like it. You glance up at Dirk again, and he seems to have the same expression of “How the fuck did this happen?” on his face. There are crumbs on the side of his mouth, and you hold back a laugh because it’s something so normal on such an extraordinary person you can’t quite believe it.

You lean over, and with the tip of your thumb, you wipe the crumbs off his cheek. He freezes, and his eyes meet yours. “Hi there.”

“Sorry,” you say, smiling somewhat guiltily, “You had some food there.” In all actuality, you just wanted to touch him again.

He laughs a little and thanks you before continuing to eat his sandwich. You find yourself endlessly amused by how he eats. You know this is probably the first time he’s had a decent sandwich ever, and the enjoyment on his face is plain as day. Which you like.

“So...” he says after finishing, “What did you want to do?”

“Well we did come here to swim,” you say, and you take another bite of your still unfinished sandwich, before adding through a full mouth, “Oh but we’ve got to tell the girls!” You’d forgotten about that in all the... hype.

“Huh?” he says.

“The girls. We’ve got to tell them,” you say earnestly. The excitement in you rushes to the surface. You want to share your joy, but also there is the fact that you feel like this will stabilize your relationship with Dirk. You feel like he’s still not accepting the fact that you really love him, even after all you just did. Although, you suppose sex isn’t much proof. To you it is, you suppose. You wouldn’t have sex with just anyone unless you had a deep connection with them. And you do with Dirk. As much as you’ve been thinking about his John Thomas lately, you really do have a deep connection to him.

“Oh, right,” he says, and he sounds hesitant. “If you really want to, dude. You know we don’t need validation from anyone here.”

You make a sound of slight frustration. “I’m not _looking_ for validation.”

“Oh,” he says, blinking. “Then why?”

“I’m just damned excited!” you exclaim, “Also I would rather like to continue this relationship without them... pining for my willie.”

He nods. “Yeah that’s a bit awks, no lie.” You almost snort at the word, but you keep the rest of your amusement to yourself. “But it just feels like... we’re rubbing it in their faces or something.”

You wince. You hadn’t really thought of that. “I guess so... But it’s not like we can just leave them in the dark. They need to know at some point.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” His tone is still reluctant. “Might as well rip the bandaid off, or whatever.”

“Right. Besides they can’t possibly like me _that_ much.” Or you hope not. You’d never really caught on to any flirtatious messages, nor had you seen any attempts at advancement. Then again, you hadn’t caught any of Dirk’s either until recently.

He laughs nervously and mumbles, “Yeah.”

You crawl over to your swim trunks and try to fish in the pockets for your phone but you’re having no luck in finding it. You grip around the ins and outs of the pockets but to no avail. Dirk watches you, his brow furrowed. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for my phone.”

“I have a computation device right over there, brosef.” He gives you a look like he’s kind of surprised you forgot. You’re kind of surprised too. You saw quite a bit on that device. You’re probably going to see more.

“Right,” you say, grinning ashamedly, and you crawl back over.

“Webcam and everything,” he goes on, “So they know we’re not pulling their legs.” He says that in a way you would say it, and you almost laugh but you hold back.

“So we can video chat them! Fantastic!” you exclaim, “But that is all the more reason to get dressed.”

“Meh, I don’t think it matters.” He shrugs, and takes another bite of the sandwich, which is nearly gone now. You raise a brow in his direction and he shrugs. “Unless you desperately want a full body shot, how would they know? You think I haven’t cammed you naked before?”

You stare at him for a second trying to process what you just heard before responding. “You’ve cammed with me naked?!” you almost shout. “Strider!”

“Exactly,” he says, and his mouth quirks up for a moment before he takes another bite.

“You’re bluffing. There’s no way,” you say, eyes wide. You wouldn’t even consider videoing with anyone without at least a pair of knickers! The thought is absurd.

“More like buffing,” he says. “As in, in the the buff. Because I was naked.”

You nearly choke. “There’s no way!”

“Careful there,” he replies, “And yeah, I’ve done it to Roxy, too. Not Jane, though. She made me put a shirt on. Didn’t want to see my areola, she said.”

“I’m not sure I needed to know that,” you reply, slightly jealous that Roxy got that sort of attention as well.

“What? They are kind of dark to be fair.” You drag your gaze back up from his nipples, and nod while he continues. “And Jane is a very proper lady. But I ask you, what kind of respectable dude doesn’t sit around his own damn house as naked as the day he rained down on a meteor?”

You sit up a bit straighter and almost huffily respond, “Well I certainly don’t!” You then quickly add on, “And your nipples aren’t distracting.”

Dirk’s eyes narrow to a point like he’s almost squinting at you. The scrutinization makes you gulp, and you look away for a few seconds. “I said dark, not distracting.”

“Well!” you stutter, “just the same!”

He rests his chin on a fist and raises an eyebrow at you. “Really,” he says. “You don’t wander around naked. My nips aren’t distracting.”

“Not in the least,” you respond in your firmest tone.

“Right,” he says, “And my rapping is shit and my art isn’t creepy.”

Your heart leaps up in your chest and you hurriedly respond, “Now that’s not true!” Once again though he gives you a look like you’re not fooling anyone, so you say, “Well, some of your art isn’t creepy.”

“Again,” he says, “Exactly.”

“Actually...” you start, thinking about some of the pieces you’d come across, but he interrupts you so quickly you can’t get the rest out.

“Oh God, Jake, no.” You clear your throat, blushing, and think back to one particular piece you actually liked a bit, but he stands by the fact that his art gets a bit out of the normal range of... sexual pieces.

“Only some pieces,” you say. Dirk is truly talented with human anatomy, a conclusion you’d come to quite easily. You don’t want him to think otherwise, and you think that maybe he might not feel secure with his art if he’s saying it’s creepy. You want this fellow to feel as secure as is physically possible, by God! That’s all you want. Dirk’s absolute happiness.

He sighs, and he looks ready to rub his temples from an oncoming headache. “Current situations don’t change the circumstances of their creation,” he says slowly, “Which is, simply put, creepy as fuck.”

You blush, and you have to concede that yes, the fact that he _did_ create these pieces while you were unaware of his feelings (and unaware of yours) is rather creepy. So you nod, and say, “Well, when you put it like that.”

“It’s like dating someone only to find they named their dog after you. Seven years ago.”

A snort escapes you, and you cover your mouth. “I s’pose you’re right,” you say from behind your hand.

Those piercing hawk-like eyes slide over to yours again, and he says quietly, “Not that I wouldn’t be totally down for reenacting some of that shit. But! it is nevertheless creepy-ass shit.”

You nod, keeping your hand over your mouth because it conveniently hides your growing blush. You’ve blushed enough for a lifetime in only a few hours. You don’t know how you’ll manage to not turn into a tomato over the course of the years that you’ll be in this relationship. You’re thinking a lifetime, and that thought makes your heart soar upward. The idea of spending your life with this guy is exciting. Your only concern at this point is whether he believes you’ll stick around for a lifetime. You feel like Dirk may have some abandonment issues with his bro, not to mention the fact that Dirk barely thinks he qualifies as a human being. You’ll be damned if he continues to think like that! You’re going to prove to him that he’s wonderful in every way, shape, or form.

He continues on about the drawings, his eyes still piercing yours. “Like that one you were looking at when I came out here,” he says, “That one was _nice_.” He draws out the long i sound, like he really means it, and you quickly agree.

“Yes,” you stutter out, keeping your hand on your mouth, “Very nice.”

“Though possibly the creepiest of the bunch,” he says thoughtfully, but then he pauses and his lips part ever so slightly like something’s just occurred to him. “There is one that’s creepier though. Just one.” You remain silent and look at him in shock. You’re not sure the one you were looking at could be surpassed in the creepiness arena. 

Dirk’s eyes seem to pierce your soul now, and he says, “I challenge you to find it.”

The adventurer in you leaps at the challenge and before you can pull the reins back on your daredevil self, you say, “A challenge eh? Well I accept your _challenge_ , Strider!” You pause, thinking momentarily, and say, “What happens if I win?”

“I guess that’s up to you,” he purrs, and you almost groan.

“That’s a little vague,” you state.

“Think of it as a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ story,” he replies, but that doesn’t help. Still, the word adventure sends your blood racing. God, you’re so idiotic sometimes.

“Oh, I like those,” you say enthusiastically, because you do, but that still doesn’t answer the question.

“I know you do,” he replies with the arrogant smirk.

“What happens if I lose?” you say, suddenly apprehensive.

“Uh...” He frowns. “How is loss determined in this situation? Do I just sit around and wait for you to never find it?” You concede that that’s a fair point, and he continues, “Perhaps we need an additional parameter. A time limit.”

“Alright,” you agree, “What’s the limit then?” You then realize that Strider might have a scheme of making you lose, so you quickly tack on, “And make the limit reasonable!”

His smile spreads wide, almost maliciously, and he says, “How about we make it really interesting. You have to find it while we’re talking to the girls.”

“Well our calls are usually hours,” you murmur, which is plenty of time for you to find a silly picture on a hard drive. “You have yourself a deal, Dirk!”

His face has gone stony though, and he says, “Hours, you say. With Jane, you say.”

You don’t understand what the problem here is, so you nod and grin sheepishly. “With all of you.”

“Right,” he says, and the tone is devoid of emotion.

“I’m not known for being quiet,” you say, pressing further.

“No, you are not,” he says, and his chest releases a sigh that carries a weight of worlds. “I suppose I ought to adjust my frame of reference, here.”

You don’t understand what he means by that, so you say, “What?”

“Looking at this from the perspective of an extrovert, making a simple pizza order could take hours. It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he replies.

You frown, your brow furrowing in confusion. You’re not _that_ talkative that a pizza order would take hours. “Now see here,” you say defensively, “ordering pizza is just ordering pizza!”

“Yeah,” he says, and once again he’s emotionless, his face stoic.

“It’s not like I’d talk the fellow’s ears off!” you say heatedly, and he just nods and mutters another sarcastic affirmative.

“I wouldn’t!” you insist.

“I’m sure,” he replies, and then his shoulders slump slightly and he says, “Why am I getting upset about a hypothetical pizza. This is stupid.”

You sigh deeply, and say, “Let’s just... call the girls, okay?”

“Whatever.”

You pull your swim trunks on while he finishes his sandwich in the ensuing silence. It hangs there awkwardly, and it’s almost choking you so you finally try to break it and say, “So we’re using your computer?”

“I guess,” is the reply.

“You guess?”

“Whatever you want to do.”

Your frowns deepens, and you say, “It’s just pizza, Dirk.”

He looks ready to explode from frustration. “I don’t care about the pizza, okay?” You bite your lip and nod, and once again you both lapse into silence. You hate that you can’t understand how his mind works as well as the girls seem to be able to. You hate that sometimes your thick skull can’t absorb things quickly enough for him. It’s going to be a struggle in this relationship, but you’ve resolved to do everything within your power to make it work. You love Strider, and you’d willingly die for him. There’s no doubt in your mind about it.

You gather up the courage and ask, “Then what’s eating at you?”

“Nothing,” he says shortly.

Your temper flares, and you say, “I’m not a ninny!”

“Of course not,” he replies, but his tone is sardonic.

“Then what the devil’s wrong?” you exclaim.  
“ _Nothing_ ,” he says insistently, still managing to remain stoic.

You take a deep breath. “Dirk.”

“What.”

“You _can_ trust me, you know,” you say softly, “You can tell me what’s wrong.”  
“There’s no point,” he says flippantly, “It’s not even a thing. Just... Call the girls if that’s what you want to do. Take hours, even. What do I care.”

It dawns on you that the emotion he’s expressing is not irritation but _envy_ , a feeling you didn’t think you’d see from him. “Are you jealous?”

“Pfff, no,” he says, but the facade of cool disinterest slips even more and you catch that insecurity finally flashing brightly before you.

“You certainly sound a little green,” you push.

“Really?” he says, “You sound more of a taupe.” You give him a look, and he stares right back. “What.”

You plant your bottom next to him and lean back on your hands, making sure you keep your eyes trained on his. He won’t meet yours, and you can imagine right now he’s regretting not wearing those stupid shades of his. “I’ve talked with you for hours, too, you know,” you point out.

“I know you have,” he says, “but believe it or not, assurances of equality aren’t exactly stellar in this situation. Equality means I’m no better or different or more valuable, and that’s... not exactly indicative of a great start.”

You gulp, and say, “I wasn’t finished,” even though you thought you had been. Your lips twitch downwards, and you slide your right hand into his left one. “Look...” you begin, “I’m here with you. Not with Janey or Rox.”

“Yeah...” he says, just as slowly.

You try to smile at him, but he still won’t meet your eyes. “Dirk,” you say tiredly, “I love the girls. I really do, but... You’re different. I’ve got vastly different feelings in regards to you.”

“And you’ve known them since when?” he says, voice tinged with anger, and pulls his hand out of yours. “Last night?”

You take another deep breath. “Even before then! Last night I just found out what they really were.” A thought occurs to you suddenly that maybe him referencing last night means he has discovered your spermatic fluid-filled sleeping bag. “Wait...” you say hesitantly, “Last night?”

“Yeah,” he continues, “because today you’re suddenly interested, and yesterday you were... weird.” He pauses, and then says frustratedly, “I don’t know actually. You were really weird yesterday. But in a way that maybe you didn’t know you were being weird? Or maybe you did.” He stops, his frown deepening, and then finally says, “I don’t know anymore.”

You frown, and think back on yesterday. You admit you might have been slightly over-animated, but that was only because you were finally within Dirk’s presence. You weren’t being, well, _coy_. “I was being weird?” you say.

“Yeah, I... fucking... I can’t even explain it anymore. There was a shit ton of innuendo, but it was really dorky and oblivious and probably not intentional. Even though there was a lot of it.”

“What?” you say, and now you’re genuinely confused. The only innuendo you can think of was this morning with breakfast. By God, you don’t think you’ve ever been witness to so much sexual tension in your life.

“Yeah, ‘what’ indeed. Let’s both sit and have a good ‘what’ over that,” he says, and he clutches his head, and says, “Psy duck,” but he drags out the “y” in “psy” for what must be a mile.

You blink in confusion and can only say “what” again.

“I have no idea,” he says resignedly, “I’m talking in circles about nothing.”

“Well this morning I certainly... ah... was thinking some naughty thoughts and let some innuendo slide through. But yesterday, no sir.”

That provokes a dry chuckle out of him. “You let something slide through alright.”

You blush, and say, “Yes, well you did, too.”

His face is a blank slate again. “Or maybe I’m imagining that, too.” He pauses, seemingly lost in thought, and then says, “I don’t fucking know.”

“I’m here for real!” you say insistently, squeezing his hand, “And I’m not going anywhere!”

He splays his hands across the table, and you’re tempted to take his fingers back up between yours but you’re not sure if you should, and while you’re still waffling he says, “I just know you like boobs and not dick, and if you’ve devoted the same amount of attention to the girls and me beforehand, that’s twice as much attention to boobs as it is to me.”

You blush and have to acknowledge that yes, you like boobs. “I certainly appreciate breasts...” you start, but he goes on.

“And if your feelings suddenly came bursting out in a fit of semen this morning, that’s absolutely not reassuring me that this is anything lasting or permanent.”

Your eyes widen. “Fit of... semen?” you breathe out, and you guess the cat’s out of the bag. Except in this case, it’s sperm, and it’s unfortunately still in a bag that you really need to get rid of.

“You heard me, okay? Just... shut up. I can’t make thoughts happen,” he says, and you realize he sounds like he’s been through the mill. This whole situation is eating at him a lot worse than you thought, and your nonchalant attitude toward it is probably aggravating him. A pang of guilt strikes your chest, and you bite your lip, but before you can say anything, once again he’s continuing on. “I guess I just... I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“What do you mean?” you say. You think you know, but you feel like some clarification is in order so you don’t mess this hell in a handbasket situation up more.

“I don’t get why this is happening,” he says, “You have absolutely no motivation to be interested in me. Why so suddenly? Why now?”

“Well,” you begin, “I’m not going to lie that I appreciate the feminine side of humanity. But my feelings towards you have always been different. Not necessarily in the romantic area from the get-go, but different. And well... seeing you in person did something to me,” you pause, and look over at him, and he’s listening but that look of doubt is still clear and strong. You cave to your temptation and scoop his palm between yours, and he lets you, but he doesn’t reciprocate the soft pressure of your hands. “We’ve always been fairly close. Or, so I’d like to think, anyway. And I guess my feelings finally... well... blossomed into what they always were but I just hadn’t realized?”

You almost faceplant into the floor because of how much of a nincompoop you managed to just sound like. He kneads the heel of his free hand into a spot between his eyebrows and grumbles something out, but you don’t quite catch it and ask for him to repeat himself. “I guess that helps,” he says hesitantly, “but... all this happened so fast. And I’m not complaining necessarily, but I’m still caught up in the why of it.”

You nod, and say, “It was admittedly fast-paced.”

“It’s a thing that really fuckin’ bothers me because if I don’t understand why it’s happening then I have no idea just how intense or serious we are. And I’d like to get an idea of how much longer this is going to last,” he says.

You frown, and your heart nearly stops cold. You knew he was worried that this was a temporary thing, but now he’s voiced it out loud and confirmed that it’s not just suspicion to him, it’s something he’s _sure_ of, and _damn_ it hurts that he can’t see you two going any farther than a few years at most. Or months. Or weeks. Who knows how long he believes you two are going to last?

“You think this is temporary?” you say quietly, trying to hide that you’re choking out words through what feels like a harpoon through your chest.

“I don’t know what it is,” he says, “That’s part of the reason I’m not thrilled about telling people. I don’t want the awkwardness of ‘we’re together!’ and then two days later, ‘oh we split up.’”

 _Days_. He didn’t even think you could last a week. He’d set himself up for this lasting _days_ , and it nearly slices you in two. “Two days?” you murmur, and you’re pretty sure you failed at keeping the hurt out of your voice this time. “That’s hardly giving us a chance, don’t you think?” He sighs for what feels like eternity and gives a listless shrug, and it destroys you to think that perhaps you can’t convince him to think as you do. Even if you can’t, you know he feels strongly for you and you’re absolutely certain that everything will be fine. “Look, Strider. The way I see it is, it’s just the way it’s always been. Nothing really has changed, insofar as what we feel. Except...”

“Except there’s dick,” he interjects, and you have to laugh and you nod.

“Yes,” you say. He chuckles slightly, and you smile back at him. “Now we’re free to act on it.”

He sighs again, but a tiny smile starts to form as he does. He pulls his hand from yours to pat your shoulder, and then leaves his hand there, squeezing gently, and you think you’ve resolved the doubt for now. You’re certain it’ll rear its head again, but you’ll be there to soothe it, and as long as you’ve got your head on straight, you’ll work it out every time. 

“I don’t think we’ll split up so soon,” you say, “if at all.”

“Hey man,” he says, “I’m in it for as long as you are. And if you say it’s been coming for a while...” He pauses, and then says soundly, “I trust you.”

Happiness bubbles in your chest like boiling water. He _trusts_ you. “Well,” you say, grinning, “I hope you’re prepared for a lifetime!”

“If you say so,” he says, smiling wanly, “then I hope so, too.”

You squeeze his hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I hope so,” he says again.

And you’ve had about enough of this hope nonsense. Relationships are about what’s _real_ , not what you _hope_ is real, the movies have taught you that much, so the real is what you’re going to focus on. You brush his cheek with your knuckles. “Come on,” you say, “let’s get that call going. I’m just champing at the bit to search for that smut of yours!”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head as he laughs through his nose, and he mutters, “I bet you are.” You move backward, in the direction of the computer, and he follows, adding, “But you’d better keep it quick. You’re not allowed to sit around for hours combing my hard drive. We’re talking, like... minutes.”

You give him a cheeky grin and capture his hand once more. “And I’ll jolly well succeed.”


End file.
